therealnews--2020-03-30--1.7 Million Jobs In Arab Region At Risk From Coronavirus

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Kim Brown : Welcome to The Real News .
I ’ m Kim Brown .
The COVID-19 pandemic is undoubtedly honing a very serious public health crisis to the globe , but also a global economic crisis as well .
A new policy brief by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia or ESCWA focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Arab region of the Middle East where many countries dependent heavily on oil revenue and also have a highly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social safety net .
Now the policy brief predicts a loss of about 40 % GDP as a result of the pandemic in the loss of at the very least 1.7 million jobs .
In other words , a economic disaster plunging millions into poverty .
[ Eamon Tomi 00:00:56 ] has a flower shop in Beirut , Lebanon , and she was given a special dispensation to open her store for Mother ’ s Day .
Let ’ s have a listen from her .
Eamon Tomi : There ’ s no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year and last year .
Most people aren ’ t going out because of coronavirus fears even though we have taken precautions .
We have sanitized the shop and are offering delivery services .
We put out ads so people won ’ t need to come down here .
That we will start delivering and that we will disinfect the flowers but despite it all people are afraid of any contact .
Kim Brown : Today we are joined with Niranjan Sarangi .
He is a macroeconomic and fiscal policy expert at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Western Asia ( UN ESCWA ) he joins us today from Lebanon .
Niranjan , thank you so much for joining us .
Niranjan Sarangi : Thank you .
It is my pleasure .
Kim Brown : If you could please tell us what makes the Arab region specifically vulnerable to the economic consequences of the measures to prevent the pandemic that are happening right now ?
Niranjan Sarangi : Yes , it ’ s a very , very important issue for the region because the whole Arab region has been facing crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in terms of growth , so almost the last decades is a decade of loss .
In our previous publication on fiscal policy review , we have shown how the region has faced a decade of loss in terms of growth due to several reasons : conflicts in some parts of the country , the oil prices fluctuations , plus several other protests and challenges that several countries have faced .
Altogether , it has been facing that kind of crisis due to both internal and external challenges .
On top of it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the global pandemic fall on it .
It is at the time when … so the challenge is compounded for the region particularly because many countries in the region are also at a high debt stress .
They ’ re on a fiscal pressure .
Our debt to GDP is very high in several countries that are already feeling the pressure of debts who are raising .
Growth , as I mentioned that it is stagnating or going down .
There are demands , but there are aspirations of people that has to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under pressure , the global pandemic is causing a more compounding pressure on them and some of the countries really are very much vulnerable how to address this challenge both financially and technically .
As it is unfolding , we are at ESCWA trying to estimate what has been its impact in the past a few days and months as a preliminary estimate .
We found that the region ’ s estimate has gone down .
I mean in fact only if we assume that by the same rate as the global growth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has lost almost $ 42 billion of GDP .
Then number two , we counted its impact on employment rather unemployment , I would say .
The region is losing something like 1.7 million jobs .
It ’ s a 1.2 % point increase in unemployment rate .
Kim Brown : The ESCWA policy brief talks about the Arab region as a whole , but I was wondering if you could be a little bit more country specific as to where this economic impact is being more strongly felt .
For example , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s already been plagued with overcrowded schools and issues with food and security .
However , on the other hand , some of the Gulf States are among the richest in the world and they absolutely have ample resources to deal with the crisis but they are more heavily dependent on oil revenues .
Where are we going to see this loss of jobs and loss of GDP ?
What countries will this be concentrated in ?
Niranjan Sarangi : Okay , that ’ s a very important question .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ whole region and the region constitutes 22 countries and it ’ s very diverse .
As you mentioned , one party ’ s oil rich , all resources dependent or one part it ’ s middle income countries are not that are significant number of countries also who are least developed countries .
The crisis is going to impact differently to different countries .
We did not do any specific countries , specific estimates at this point because of lack of evidence from the country level , but the pandemic is going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for example , the jobs because the service sector is heavily impacted in this global pandemic because of social distancing particularly .
The countries that are more dependent on service sector are going to be hard hit .
The countries that are depending on informal sector more particularly in middle income and low income countries of the region who have the informal sector is higher , they are going to be more affected .
The jobs will be more affected there .
Similarly , these countries are also depending on remittances .
If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the oil prices is going down , then remittance ’ s flow is also going to go down .
Obviously the challenge compounds as I mentioned .
On the other hand , in the oil rich countries , the Gulf countries where the economic activities are depended on oil revenues more or less .
What I ’ d seen the oil prices have gone down systematically since the outbreak of the pandemic .
In recent month , I mean in recent days , in March particularly , it is compounded the market pressure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the market share competition .
That has led to collapse of the oil prices .
Obviously the means to satisfy the economics from the expenditure level is difficult for the oil rich countries .
Obviously , they have a buffer but they are also facing systematic systematically shocks since 2014 .
The pool of resources that they can rely on , it ’ s shrinking .
It ’ s not a very , I mean optimistic situation where we can say that yes they have much more resources and they can handle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Kim Brown : At the end of the policy brief , you offer six recommendations so that countries can help mitigate the economic impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic .
In your opinion , which of those recommendations are most important ?
Also if you could give an example , is there a country already in the Arab region that is adhering to some of these recommendations and that you would like to single out as doing a good job relative to the circumstances ?
Niranjan Sarangi : Well , yes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ explained , it requires both national and a regionally coordinated actions .
At the national level there are several examples , particularly coming from the Gulf , the oil rich countries , they have announced a stimulus packages to support the economic activities .
Egypt also announced a stimulus packages to support the economic activities and to fight against this COVID-19 pandemic .
There are other measures than the stimulus packages that countries are using for example , lockdown , social distancing , work from home , schools and universities are shut down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken into account to fight the impact of the pandemic because once it puts the outbreak stage , the region may face really catastrophic situation .
In terms of stimulus packages , Saudi Arabia , Qatar , Oman have , I mean , declared several stimulus packages to support the businesses and that ’ s the more concrete examples we have .
Otherwise , there is a call for coordinated action and a regional support as well as international support is required to take into account the scale of the challenge .
Except @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majors in the region are more locking down or nonfinancial measures .
That ’ s not going to help much in terms of jobs or social protection .
Social protection as it is low in the region and extending for social protection , bringing those who lost their jobs into the social bracket is very , very difficult .
On the one hand , the fiscal pressure is high .
The finances needed to support those new poor or new vulnerable people who lost their jobs is high .
On the other hand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the countries is low .
Tax to GDP reservoir is much low .
There is a requirement for both extending the social protection and raising the finances .
The national actions will not be sufficient to address the challenge of the problem that they are facing , in the scale of the problem that they are facing .
It would require a combination of national and regionally coordinated actions .
It would also require support of the private sector .
At the national level , raising domestic resources is essential .
There is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ region has also wealthy businesses and they account for a lot of the wealth in the region .
There is opportunity to see how in terms of solidarity with those who are vulnerable , how finances can be raised from them in terms of taxing the high net worth people or support of the businesses and regionally coordinated action .
All measures need to be taken into account to fight against the virus .
Kim Brown : Ranjan , I know that you ’ re an economist , not a health official .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ You are an observer from your corner of the world and you are coming to us today from Lebanon .
Can you tell us from your observations , what are you seeing , how the pandemic is impacting where you live ?
Niranjan Sarangi : Yes .
It ’ s impacting heavily to Lebanon , particularly heavily to Lebanon and because Lebanon has been facing a debt crisis for a long time and Lebanon has been placed in economic crisis since last three months or so .
People were protesting for better public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taxes and all sorts of things and they were losing their incomes .
They were losing their jobs .
On top of that , the COVID-19 arrived and that led to lockdown .
We are in a lockdown situation since the last eight days .
The airport is shut .
The seaport is shut .
They have a crisis of the dollar as it is , which makes trade difficult because the dollar depends a lot on import .
It just compounds the effect .
I can see that several businesses are shut @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , several and now the streets are empty .
In a financial crisis , the debt crisis , the COVID-19 , coronavirus crisis is just one on the top of another on Lebanon .
Kim Brown : Okay , well we ’ re going to leave the conversation there .
We ’ ve been speaking with Niranjan Sarangi .
He is the macroeconomic and fiscal policy expert at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia .
He ’ s been joining us today from Lebanon .
Niranjan , we appreciate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thank you so much .
Niranjan Sarangi : Thank you .
It is my pleasure .
Kim Brown : And thank you for watching The Real News Network .

A UN brief warns about economic collapse, expecting up to a $42 billion decline in GDP and trillions of dollars lost to the private sector in an area already ravaged by inequality, dependency on oil revenue, and authoritarian governments.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Kim Brown: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Kim Brown. The COVID-19 pandemic is undoubtedly honing a very serious public health crisis to the globe, but also a global economic crisis as well. A new policy brief by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia or ESCWA focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Arab region of the Middle East where many countries dependent heavily on oil revenue and also have a highly stratified economic system with little or no social safety net. Now the policy brief predicts a loss of about 40% GDP [Correction: The ESCWA report predicts a decrease of up to $42 billion, not of 40%.] as a result of the pandemic in the loss of at the very least 1.7 million jobs. In other words, a economic disaster plunging millions into poverty.
[Eamon Tomi 00:00:56] has a flower shop in Beirut, Lebanon, and she was given a special dispensation to open her store for Mother’s Day. Let’s have a listen from her.
Eamon Tomi: There’s no comparison between Mother’s Day this year and last year. Most people aren’t going out because of coronavirus fears even though we have taken precautions. We have sanitized the shop and are offering delivery services. We put out ads so people won’t need to come down here. That we will start delivering and that we will disinfect the flowers but despite it all people are afraid of any contact.
Kim Brown: Today we are joined with Niranjan Sarangi. He is a macroeconomic and fiscal policy expert at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN ESCWA) he joins us today from Lebanon. Niranjan, thank you so much for joining us.
Niranjan Sarangi: Thank you. It is my pleasure.
Kim Brown: If you could please tell us what makes the Arab region specifically vulnerable to the economic consequences of the measures to prevent the pandemic that are happening right now?
Niranjan Sarangi: Yes, it’s a very, very important issue for the region because the whole Arab region has been facing crisis for a long time. I mean in terms of growth, so almost the last decades is a decade of loss. In our previous publication on fiscal policy review, we have shown how the region has faced a decade of loss in terms of growth due to several reasons: conflicts in some parts of the country, the oil prices fluctuations, plus several other protests and challenges that several countries have faced. Altogether, it has been facing that kind of crisis due to both internal and external challenges.
On top of it, this health crisis, which is the global pandemic fall on it. It is at the time when … so the challenge is compounded for the region particularly because many countries in the region are also at a high debt stress. They’re on a fiscal pressure. Our debt to GDP is very high in several countries that are already feeling the pressure of debts who are raising.
Growth, as I mentioned that it is stagnating or going down. There are demands, but there are aspirations of people that has to be met. When governments are already under pressure, the global pandemic is causing a more compounding pressure on them and some of the countries really are very much vulnerable how to address this challenge both financially and technically.
As it is unfolding, we are at ESCWA trying to estimate what has been its impact in the past a few days and months as a preliminary estimate. We found that the region’s estimate has gone down. I mean in fact only if we assume that by the same rate as the global growth is going down, then the region has lost almost $42 billion of GDP.
Then number two, we counted its impact on employment rather unemployment, I would say. The region is losing something like 1.7 million jobs. It’s a 1.2% point increase in unemployment rate.
Kim Brown: The ESCWA policy brief talks about the Arab region as a whole, but I was wondering if you could be a little bit more country specific as to where this economic impact is being more strongly felt. For example, Egypt has a population of 100 million. It’s already been plagued with overcrowded schools and issues with food and security. However, on the other hand, some of the Gulf States are among the richest in the world and they absolutely have ample resources to deal with the crisis but they are more heavily dependent on oil revenues. Where are we going to see this loss of jobs and loss of GDP? What countries will this be concentrated in?
Niranjan Sarangi: Okay, that’s a very important question. Actually we did the estimate for the whole region and the region constitutes 22 countries and it’s very diverse. As you mentioned, one party’s oil rich, all resources dependent or one part it’s middle income countries are not that are significant number of countries also who are least developed countries.
The crisis is going to impact differently to different countries. We did not do any specific countries, specific estimates at this point because of lack of evidence from the country level, but the pandemic is going to impact more in the middle income countries for example, the jobs because the service sector is heavily impacted in this global pandemic because of social distancing particularly. The countries that are more dependent on service sector are going to be hard hit. The countries that are depending on informal sector more particularly in middle income and low income countries of the region who have the informal sector is higher, they are going to be more affected. The jobs will be more affected there.
Similarly, these countries are also depending on remittances. If the Gulf is not doing well if the oil prices is going down, then remittance’s flow is also going to go down. Obviously the challenge compounds as I mentioned.
On the other hand, in the oil rich countries, the Gulf countries where the economic activities are depended on oil revenues more or less. What I’d seen the oil prices have gone down systematically since the outbreak of the pandemic. In recent month, I mean in recent days, in March particularly, it is compounded the market pressure and that led for the price competition and the market share competition. That has led to collapse of the oil prices.
Obviously the means to satisfy the economics from the expenditure level is difficult for the oil rich countries. Obviously, they have a buffer but they are also facing systematic systematically shocks since 2014. The pool of resources that they can rely on, it’s shrinking. It’s not a very, I mean optimistic situation where we can say that yes they have much more resources and they can handle it without facing the heat of it.
Kim Brown: At the end of the policy brief, you offer six recommendations so that countries can help mitigate the economic impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In your opinion, which of those recommendations are most important? Also if you could give an example, is there a country already in the Arab region that is adhering to some of these recommendations and that you would like to single out as doing a good job relative to the circumstances?
Niranjan Sarangi: Well, yes. I mean the recommendations as it is explained, it requires both national and a regionally coordinated actions. At the national level there are several examples, particularly coming from the Gulf, the oil rich countries, they have announced a stimulus packages to support the economic activities.
Egypt also announced a stimulus packages to support the economic activities and to fight against this COVID-19 pandemic. There are other measures than the stimulus packages that countries are using for example, lockdown, social distancing, work from home, schools and universities are shut down. There are several other measures are taken into account to fight the impact of the pandemic because once it puts the outbreak stage, the region may face really catastrophic situation. In terms of stimulus packages, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman have, I mean, declared several stimulus packages to support the businesses and that’s the more concrete examples we have.
Otherwise, there is a call for coordinated action and a regional support as well as international support is required to take into account the scale of the challenge. Except the Gulf and the Egypt, other majors in the region are more locking down or nonfinancial measures. That’s not going to help much in terms of jobs or social protection. Social protection as it is low in the region and extending for social protection, bringing those who lost their jobs into the social bracket is very, very difficult.
On the one hand, the fiscal pressure is high. The finances needed to support those new poor or new vulnerable people who lost their jobs is high. On the other hand, the resource base for most of the countries is low. Tax to GDP reservoir is much low. There is a requirement for both extending the social protection and raising the finances. The national actions will not be sufficient to address the challenge of the problem that they are facing, in the scale of the problem that they are facing.
It would require a combination of national and regionally coordinated actions. It would also require support of the private sector. At the national level, raising domestic resources is essential. There is the opportunity in the sense that the region has also wealthy businesses and they account for a lot of the wealth in the region. There is opportunity to see how in terms of solidarity with those who are vulnerable, how finances can be raised from them in terms of taxing the high net worth people or support of the businesses and regionally coordinated action. All measures need to be taken into account to fight against the virus.
Kim Brown: Ranjan, I know that you’re an economist, not a health official. However, you are a person. You are an observer from your corner of the world and you are coming to us today from Lebanon. Can you tell us from your observations, what are you seeing, how the pandemic is impacting where you live?
Niranjan Sarangi: Yes. It’s impacting heavily to Lebanon, particularly heavily to Lebanon and because Lebanon has been facing a debt crisis for a long time and Lebanon has been placed in economic crisis since last three months or so.
People were protesting for better public service, protesting against the raise of taxes and all sorts of things and they were losing their incomes. They were losing their jobs. On top of that, the COVID-19 arrived and that led to lockdown. We are in a lockdown situation since the last eight days. The airport is shut. The seaport is shut. They have a crisis of the dollar as it is, which makes trade difficult because the dollar depends a lot on import. It just compounds the effect. I can see that several businesses are shut and those were operating three months ago, several and now the streets are empty. In a financial crisis, the debt crisis, the COVID-19, coronavirus crisis is just one on the top of another on Lebanon.
Kim Brown: Okay, well we’re going to leave the conversation there. We’ve been speaking with Niranjan Sarangi. He is the macroeconomic and fiscal policy expert at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. He’s been joining us today from Lebanon. Niranjan, we appreciate your time and your expertise today. Thank you so much.
Niranjan Sarangi: Thank you. It is my pleasure.
Kim Brown: And thank you for watching The Real News Network.
Production: Genevieve Montinar, Cameron Granadino
Studio: Cameron Granadino
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


therealnews--2020-03-30--How The Coronavirus Pandemic Can Lead To Deglobalization

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Greg Wilpert : It ’ s the Real News Network .
I ’ m Greg Wilpert in Arlington , Virginia .
As the world enters an unprecedented lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic , it makes sense to step back and look at what led us here and what a world that is less susceptible to pandemics might look like .
One prominent thinker considering this is sociologist Walden Bello .
In an article on the website Foreign Policy In Focus , he outlines why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this pandemic and how the pandemic could eventually lead to what he calls deglobalization .
Joining me now to discuss his article titled Coronavirus and the Death of Connectivity is Walden Bello .
He ’ s professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton , and the author of many books most recently of Counterrevolution , The Global Rise of the Far-Right , and of Paper Dragons : China and the Next Crash .
He joins us today from Bangkok , Thailand .
Thanks for being here again @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Greg , for inviting me despite the circumstances .
Greg Wilpert : Right .
So in your article , you say that the pandemic was to a large extent caused by globalization and that its aftermath could lead to a process of deglobalization .
But before we get into that , we need to set the stage .
Talk about how the great recession of 2009 affected globalization and where we are today .
Walden Bello : I think that the first great crisis of globalization took place in 2008 with The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saw during that period was that so many of the aspects of globalization , such as supply chains , ground to a halt .
Even The Economist at that point was saying that the integration of the world economy is falling apart , owing to the speed of both the financial crisis and the impact under real economy .
Let ’ s not forget that at that time , not only did the financial system globally come to a halt , but there was tremendous impact on the real economy .
In China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of work and hundreds of millions of people throughout the world in the global North as well as in the global South lost their jobs .
There was stagnation for the coming several years .
Europe was in recession for a long , long time .
The United States had unemployment of about the… that was greater in 2015 than at the start of the financial crisis .
So we really had a situation whereby globalization and the integration of the global economy that that brought about really was in a major @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So it seems that the elites were oriented towards continuing the neoliberal globalization process , were basically intent on reestablishing the old order after 2009 , that is more free trade deals , limited market regulation , and more government austerity .
Now in your book on the global rise of the right , and also in your article , you argue that this approach among the elite provided an opening for the right , for the far-right .
How and why did this happen exactly ?
Walden Bello : You definitely are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ center right and center left elites were tied to the old border of neoliberalism and globalization .
But , they had lost their faith in it .
It was like they were just going through the motions during this time .
But nevertheless , they didn ’ t see any other alternative but to stick to it .
It ’ s because in fact , they did not change at all except adhere to the old methods despite the social costs of this , that this provided people in the far-right , for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ costs of protecting the economies , protecting the political system and basically challenging globalization but giving it a twist that the basic cost of this whole thing was migrants or minorities , and that the elites were out of touch and that they were promoting this invasion of their societies by migrants , and that those people who had been there basically had the rights to the benefits of that society .
Basically , it was twisting around what many of us at the left had been saying , that globalization was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed a more progressive world order , both at the national and the global order , but they were twisting it to say that , “ Oh , let ’ s do protection , but only for those who have been here for a long , long time , the native population .
Everybody else , keep out.
” I mean , that ’ s simplistic of course , but that ’ s the kind of nativist and racist kind of reactions that the far-right played , that the far-right pushed , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers and other sectors that were threatened and wanted to see an explanation for their crisis .
So that was the opening that the crisis of globalization provided to the far-right .
Greg Wilpert : Let ’ s turn to the coronavirus pandemic right now .
Here at the Real News Network , we have interviewed guests who have laid some of the blame for the pandemic to climate change .
But in your article , you tie it to globalization .
What do you see as being the connection between globalization and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t this connection also reinforce the far-right ’ s anti-globalization discourse ?
Walden Bello : My sense is this , that during the crisis , as the far-right began to take advantage of nationalistic sentiments to promote a kind of protectionist , but negatively protectionist vision for their societies , and established elites were basically lacked legitimacy because of the crisis to which globalization had led and neoliberalism has led , China stepped into the leadership of the globalization process .
This was when Xi Jinping came to power , and we had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jinping stepped into this and he says that globalization was essentially good .
It ’ s just that we needed to be able to smooth its rough edges , and that it was very beneficial to all of humanity .
That was sort of the thing that happened .
Now the new slogan at this point in time that came out from different sectors of the global elite and from China itself was connectivity , that it was important to have not only digital connectivity , which everybody was saying was great , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that speeding up global mobility through physical transportation and other kinds of chronic connectivities , as they would call it , was really very essential in order to move to a new phase of globalization .
Air transportation , air connectivity was one of the most important things that was being pushed , not only in order to be able to speed up the movements in the global supply chain , but also to push , take advantage of explosion on tourism at this point in time .
Everybody wanted a piece of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tremendous number of tourists coming out of China into the rest of the world .
And so many of the local sectors of the different economies , like that of Thailand for instance , became very much dependent on this air connectivity-triggered tourism .
The last thing I would just like to push here was that it was China came out , or the leadership in China came out with the Belt and Road Initiative , this really big trillion dollar program that evoked the images of linking Europe and Asia in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now going to be put at the global level .
The Chinese leadership called it global connectivity .
There were essentially initially two routes , the land route , okay , and the maritime route by around 2015 .
There were so many routes now , including a polar silk route that was supposed to bring together the world within a new system of connectivity .
The context , in which that provided the context for the recent events , as we have the seen .
Now I ’ m not saying , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that direct connection in terms of globalization , say directly creating the conditions for the virus , I mean , the emergence of the virus .
I ’ m not saying that .
I ’ m just saying that when what happened happened in terms of the leap from viruses in animals to humans to which they took place , then this whole system of connectivity became the transmission , especially air connectivity became the transmission belt for a virus that was traveling at internet speed .
So connectivity , you might say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , rapid , rapid spread off the virus .
Greg Wilpert : So if globalization carries some of the blame for the spread of the pandemic , now would deglobalization be the appropriate response to it ?
And if so , what does deglobalization even mean ?
How would it be different from what people on the far-right , such as Donald Trump , are calling for when they turn towards nationalism and against globalism ?
Walden Bello : Well , deglobalization , just a bit of a history , we had proposed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ early as the 2000 and 2001 .
In fact , I wrote a book that was titled Deglobalization and it came out in 2002 .
Basically , this was , we were saying that one , we needed to protect local economies from the way that industry and agriculture were being subverted by transnational corporations in terms of their cheap goods , and that we needed to use tariffs and other mechanisms to be able to protect , our farmers , and local manufacturers .
But beyond that , there was a sense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trade policy that would in fact sustain our national economies and not have them be disrupted by the impact of very cheap commodities that were being produced by this supply chains run by transnational corporations .
And a lot of these supply chains were in fact located in China .
But beyond that , I think that beyond the policy prescriptions that we had around how do we maintain the integrity of national economies , we were basically saying that deglobalization rests on ideas or an approach that basically says we need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t run society , but societies run markets .
We said that values of justice , community , solidarity were very important as an canopy to be able to contain and direct markets rather than markets directing society .
You know , of course that the essence of globalization was to say that the best restraints on the market , the better .
So everything was being chucked out of the window and it was a question of markets and profits being the centerpiece that would drive the global economy .
In essence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something that would say that we just need to have more local control , but in a progressive way that did not discriminate against people but in fact promoted social justice , welcomed migrants , and basically sought greater social equality .
That is something that the right has pushed out of the window and is just relying on this nationalistic anti-migrant and racist sentiments of basically saying , “ Hey , it ’ s only for us to enjoy what are the benefits of this society , us meaning those of us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right religion and of the right color and of the right culture .
The rest , it ’ s off limits to them.
” That was the way that the right distorted the message of deglobalization .
Greg Wilpert : Okay .
Well , we ’ re going to have to leave it there for now .
I was speaking to Walden Bello , professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton , who joined us today from Bangkok , Thailand .
Thanks again , Walden , for having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : And thank you for joining the Real News Network .

The rapid, extensive spread of COVID-19 is partly a crisis of globalization. The pandemic gives us an opportunity to rethink our global economic system in favor of ‘deglobalization.’
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Greg Wilpert: It’s the Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in Arlington, Virginia. As the world enters an unprecedented lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic, it makes sense to step back and look at what led us here and what a world that is less susceptible to pandemics might look like. One prominent thinker considering this is sociologist Walden Bello. In an article on the website Foreign Policy In Focus, he outlines why globalization is one of the main causes of this pandemic and how the pandemic could eventually lead to what he calls deglobalization.
Joining me now to discuss his article titled Coronavirus and the Death of Connectivity is Walden Bello. He’s professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton, and the author of many books most recently of Counterrevolution, The Global Rise of the Far-Right, and of Paper Dragons: China and the Next Crash. He joins us today from Bangkok, Thailand. Thanks for being here again, Walden.
Walden Bello: Thanks, Greg, for inviting me despite the circumstances.
Greg Wilpert: Right. So in your article, you say that the pandemic was to a large extent caused by globalization and that its aftermath could lead to a process of deglobalization. But before we get into that, we need to set the stage. Talk about how the great recession of 2009 affected globalization and where we are today.
Walden Bello: I think that the first great crisis of globalization took place in 2008 with The Great Recession. Basically, what we saw during that period was that so many of the aspects of globalization, such as supply chains, ground to a halt. Even The Economist at that point was saying that the integration of the world economy is falling apart, owing to the speed of both the financial crisis and the impact under real economy.
Let’s not forget that at that time, not only did the financial system globally come to a halt, but there was tremendous impact on the real economy. In China alone, 25 million people were laid out of work and hundreds of millions of people throughout the world in the global North as well as in the global South lost their jobs. There was stagnation for the coming several years. Europe was in recession for a long, long time. The United States had unemployment of about the… that was greater in 2015 than at the start of the financial crisis.
So we really had a situation whereby globalization and the integration of the global economy that that brought about really was in a major, major crisis.
Greg Wilpert: So it seems that the elites were oriented towards continuing the neoliberal globalization process, were basically intent on reestablishing the old order after 2009, that is more free trade deals, limited market regulation, and more government austerity. Now in your book on the global rise of the right, and also in your article, you argue that this approach among the elite provided an opening for the right, for the far-right. How and why did this happen exactly?
Walden Bello: You definitely are right that the elites of both the center right and center left elites were tied to the old border of neoliberalism and globalization. But, they had lost their faith in it. It was like they were just going through the motions during this time. But nevertheless, they didn’t see any other alternative but to stick to it. It’s because in fact, they did not change at all except adhere to the old methods despite the social costs of this, that this provided people in the far-right, for an extreme right to take up the costs of protecting the economies, protecting the political system and basically challenging globalization but giving it a twist that the basic cost of this whole thing was migrants or minorities, and that the elites were out of touch and that they were promoting this invasion of their societies by migrants, and that those people who had been there basically had the rights to the benefits of that society.
Basically, it was twisting around what many of us at the left had been saying, that globalization was the cause of the crisis and we really needed a more progressive world order, both at the national and the global order, but they were twisting it to say that, “Oh, let’s do protection, but only for those who have been here for a long, long time, the native population. Everybody else, keep out.” I mean, that’s simplistic of course, but that’s the kind of nativist and racist kind of reactions that the far-right played, that the far-right pushed, and which evoked a lot of support from workers and other sectors that were threatened and wanted to see an explanation for their crisis. So that was the opening that the crisis of globalization provided to the far-right.
Greg Wilpert: Let’s turn to the coronavirus pandemic right now. Here at the Real News Network, we have interviewed guests who have laid some of the blame for the pandemic to climate change. But in your article, you tie it to globalization. What do you see as being the connection between globalization and the coronavirus pandemic? And won’t this connection also reinforce the far-right’s anti-globalization discourse?
Walden Bello: My sense is this, that during the crisis, as the far-right began to take advantage of nationalistic sentiments to promote a kind of protectionist, but negatively protectionist vision for their societies, and established elites were basically lacked legitimacy because of the crisis to which globalization had led and neoliberalism has led, China stepped into the leadership of the globalization process. This was when Xi Jinping came to power, and we had the economic nationalism of Trump. Xi Jinping stepped into this and he says that globalization was essentially good. It’s just that we needed to be able to smooth its rough edges, and that it was very beneficial to all of humanity. That was sort of the thing that happened.
Now the new slogan at this point in time that came out from different sectors of the global elite and from China itself was connectivity, that it was important to have not only digital connectivity, which everybody was saying was great, but also physical transportation connectivity, and that speeding up global mobility through physical transportation and other kinds of chronic connectivities, as they would call it, was really very essential in order to move to a new phase of globalization.
Air transportation, air connectivity was one of the most important things that was being pushed, not only in order to be able to speed up the movements in the global supply chain, but also to push, take advantage of explosion on tourism at this point in time. Everybody wanted a piece of the pie that was offered by the tremendous number of tourists coming out of China into the rest of the world. And so many of the local sectors of the different economies, like that of Thailand for instance, became very much dependent on this air connectivity-triggered tourism.
The last thing I would just like to push here was that it was China came out, or the leadership in China came out with the Belt and Road Initiative, this really big trillion dollar program that evoked the images of linking Europe and Asia in the early modern era, and it was now going to be put at the global level. The Chinese leadership called it global connectivity. There were essentially initially two routes, the land route, okay, and the maritime route by around 2015. There were so many routes now, including a polar silk route that was supposed to bring together the world within a new system of connectivity. The context, in which that provided the context for the recent events, as we have the seen.
Now I’m not saying, of course, that there’s that direct connection in terms of globalization, say directly creating the conditions for the virus, I mean, the emergence of the virus. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that when what happened happened in terms of the leap from viruses in animals to humans to which they took place, then this whole system of connectivity became the transmission, especially air connectivity became the transmission belt for a virus that was traveling at internet speed. So connectivity, you might say, created the conditions for the rapid, rapid, rapid spread off the virus.
Greg Wilpert: So if globalization carries some of the blame for the spread of the pandemic, now would deglobalization be the appropriate response to it? And if so, what does deglobalization even mean? How would it be different from what people on the far-right, such as Donald Trump, are calling for when they turn towards nationalism and against globalism?
Walden Bello: Well, deglobalization, just a bit of a history, we had proposed this as an alternative to globalization as early as the 2000 and 2001. In fact, I wrote a book that was titled Deglobalization and it came out in 2002. Basically, this was, we were saying that one, we needed to protect local economies from the way that industry and agriculture were being subverted by transnational corporations in terms of their cheap goods, and that we needed to use tariffs and other mechanisms to be able to protect, our farmers, and local manufacturers.
But beyond that, there was a sense that you needed to use an activist trade policy that would in fact sustain our national economies and not have them be disrupted by the impact of very cheap commodities that were being produced by this supply chains run by transnational corporations. And a lot of these supply chains were in fact located in China.
But beyond that, I think that beyond the policy prescriptions that we had around how do we maintain the integrity of national economies, we were basically saying that deglobalization rests on ideas or an approach that basically says we need to control markets so that markets don’t run society, but societies run markets. We said that values of justice, community, solidarity were very important as an canopy to be able to contain and direct markets rather than markets directing society.
You know, of course that the essence of globalization was to say that the best restraints on the market, the better. So everything was being chucked out of the window and it was a question of markets and profits being the centerpiece that would drive the global economy.
In essence, what we were proposing then was something that would say that we just need to have more local control, but in a progressive way that did not discriminate against people but in fact promoted social justice, welcomed migrants, and basically sought greater social equality.
That is something that the right has pushed out of the window and is just relying on this nationalistic anti-migrant and racist sentiments of basically saying, “Hey, it’s only for us to enjoy what are the benefits of this society, us meaning those of us who were originally here and of the right religion and of the right color and of the right culture. The rest, it’s off limits to them.” That was the way that the right distorted the message of deglobalization.
Greg Wilpert: Okay. Well, we’re going to have to leave it there for now. I was speaking to Walden Bello, professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton, who joined us today from Bangkok, Thailand. Thanks again, Walden, for having been on our program.
Walden Bello: Thank you, Greg.
Greg Wilpert: And thank you for joining the Real News Network.
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


Stir Crazy!

All donations in the US and Canada are tax deductible .
To make a secure donation by credit or debit @ @ @ @ @ location , or select PayPal .

STIR CRAZY!
Our live show, hosted by Kim Brown, with a no-holds-barred take on the news of the day every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Our socially distanced panel of guests and correspondents breaks down the latest terrifying developments in our messed up world.


therealnews--2020-03-27--Rikers Island Prisoners Strike for Soap, Cleaning Wipes

Journalist Kim Kelly has been in contact with a prisoner inside Rikers Island .
She talks with TRNN ’ s @ @ @ @ @ further action is needed to protect people from COVID-19 .

Journalist Kim Kelly has been in contact with a prisoner inside Rikers Island. She talks with TRNN’s Eddie Conway about why immediate further action is needed to protect people from COVID-19.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Eddie Conway: Welcome to this episode of The Real News. I’m Eddie Conway, coming to you from Baltimore. This is a special update of Rattling the Bars. Recently we have been looking at the coronavirus scare and pandemic across the world and we have a special interest and concern about how this is going to impact the two plus million people in the prisons and jails across America. We know that 75% of [inaudible 00:00:43] people of color, and we know that if the virus gets inside a jail, it’s going to probably be really bad in there because prisoners can’t have social distance.
They’re in cells, the cells are side by side, in some cases they’re in large dormitories and is sleeping in a double bunks, and so they are within hands [inaudible 00:01:13] of almost all the time, even when they go eating or go to eat. Rikers Island has reported a case and I believe it’s over a dozen cases in Rikers Island now and that’s a concern. Rikers Island has at any given day, 10,000 prisoners locked up on that Island.
It also has 9,000 guards that maintain those prisoners on the Island and it has also 1,500 civilian employees that come in, whether they do teaching in or electrical work or plumbing or whatever. Totally, there’s 20 some 1000 people on that island and now this COVID-19 has been reported among the prison population. So today to give us an update and an overview of what’s happening I’m talking to Kim Kelly, which is a freelance journalist that does activist journalism on the ground or from Philadelphia and she had recently spoken to someone in the prison itself. So Kim, thanks for joining me.
Kim Kelly: Thank you so much for having me and for having these really important updates.
Eddie Conway: Give us an overview of what you’ve learned so far in your communications with the prisoner.
Kim Kelly: Right. I got a phone call from a friend of mine who’s been in custody in Rikers for the past few months, and I’ve been trying to get in touch with them for the past few days because I got word over the weekend that two dorms worth of people, about 48 people in the Robert N. Davoren Center were basically going on a small scale strike. They’re refusing to leave to go to their work details and they’re refusing to go to the mess hall in protest of the conditions within that Island, which are deteriorating just rapidly.
They’re already bad, but now they’re getting so much worse. The people who are imprisoned on this Island there, they barely have basic supplies. They had to go on this strike in order to get masks, to get some cleaning supplies. There’s still no hand sanitizer, there’s no bleach. People are sick. There are people, I think there are about 39 reported cases now on the Island and there are also about 82 people who are being held in quarantine in the West Facility’s Infectious Disease Center. They’re overflowing. They’re completely unprepared to deal with this.
As he said, he told me, “We already know that the DOC doesn’t care about us, but at this point it just feels like they’re being negligent and they’re overwhelmed and they’re completely unprepared to handle this.” He told me in a case of an elderly gentleman who spoke Chinese, who went down about five days ago, an elderly gentleman who was showing symptoms and he went to the clinic and he was accompanied by a Chinese American man who could serve as an interpreter, and they were kept in a holding cell for eight hours together with however many other people who were sick showing symptoms.
And then eventually the older man was taken into quarantine and the younger men would just sent back into gen pop. My friend was telling me how COs are walking around without masks, without taking basic precautions. They’re putting up these posters throughout the dorms saying, “Stay six feet away from each other. Social distancing.” You cannot social distance when you are sleeping in a dorm full of people two feet away with two feet between beds. It’s almost laughable if it wasn’t so serious and so dangerous.
Like these people are essentially trapped in a Petri dish and it’s in de Blasio and Cuomo, they have the power to release so many more people than they have. They have the moral obligation to release so many more people than they have, and they haven’t and the clock is ticking. People are sick. We have not had a death amongst the incarcerated population on Rikers yet, but who knows how far away we are from that, like it’s coming.
I don’t think people who aren’t paying attention to the plight of people who are incarcerated perhaps realize just how desperate things are. Like people in these prisons are going on strike just for some cleaning wipes, just for a mask. There are people who … My friend also told me the instance a few days ago in which 15 people were moved into his dorm and they found out that some of them had been exhibiting … Had been held in a different facility where they were tested for the virus and then the DOC moved them into a different dorm without waiting for the test results. And then it came out afterwards that the results were positive.
So there is just so much cross-contamination. There is so much spread happening and it’s really just a dire situation for everyone inside and also for people outside because you know there are thousands of people who work on the Island who get to leave. There are people incarcerated there who are allowed to leave, who are released and they’re just going out into the general population, which they deserve to be free. But the health … It’s a public health crisis waiting to happen in the midst of a pandemic and keeping people locked up like this in these crowded cells, dirty conditions, it’s just a crime. It’s a crime against humanity, is what it is.
Eddie Conway: Of the people being held at Rikers Island right now, like over 8,000 people are being held as pretrial custody, so they haven’t been convicted of anything or sentenced to any kind of time. The other 15% is doing a term, but at least 8,500 of those people that’s trapped on that Island right now hasn’t been convicted of anything or being held or in some cases without bail, but in other cases because they just couldn’t afford to make bail.
This seems to be something that the governor, not the governor, the mayor, because this is a New York City jail, so Mayor de Blasio has the power and the ability to release the aging, the infirmed, people with respiratory problems, et cetera. He has that power now at least at the very least, among the 8,500. What’s being done to bring pressure to bear on him about this, because it’s a decision that him and his state’s attorney can make.
Kim Kelly: Right. There has been thankfully a lot of reporting about the issue, especially because New York media is primed to cover everything that’s happening within the city’s borders and Rikers. The virus coming to Rikers is a huge story, it’s a huge risk. So there has been a lot of public pressure in that way and de Blasio has committed … I think he’s released 75 people so far, which is a drop in the bucket. I know that today they’re supposedly going to be releasing another 200, and then supposedly on Wednesday another 100 to 200 people potentially will be released as per the board of the New York City Board of Corrections’ recommendations.
This board has been pushing for them to let out as many people as possible because of the health risk. And I know that people, abolitionists and activists and friends and family of people who were inside had been pushing and having … And others have phone zap today being held by some radical organizers in New York to call in and to demand that these people be let free. There’s a lot of public pressure that is, is this possible to put pressure on these public officials? Especially because in the midst of this pandemic, they are trying to seem like the good guys, they’re trying to seem like they have things under control, but what they don’t have under control is the fact that there is a ticking time bomb in the middle of one of the most vulnerable populations in the city.
Eddie Conway: Okay. And I heard you say that they are striking for simple things like hand sanitizers, face masks, et cetera. Is there any, and I understand this is the city’s responsibility, the government’s responsibility, but is there any grassroots effort on the ground to get those kind of things and maybe ship them into the inmate, the prison population? Because it doesn’t seem to be something that we can wait on if there’s almost 40 cases inside that prison already.
Kim Kelly: Right. I know there’ve been efforts already to send people inside soap because it’s such a ridiculous state of affairs that so many people don’t even have soap because they had to buy it from commissary. And the problem with hand sanitizers is that for them to be … It has to be like 60% for it to be effective. That’s regarded as contraband within these dorms. So they’re not allowed to have it, despite the fact that people who are in these prisons are apparently being forced to manufacture hand sanitizer for other people.
So I think what the most effective thing to do right now besides keeping in touch with your loved ones, besides sending them letters, because they’ve suspended physical visits and video conferencing appears to not be available right now, is to just put pressure on these public officials to close … I mean, we all want Rikers to be closed down for good, but for now we need to get these people out of there and these public officials need to know that the people want this. They need to know that they can’t [inaudible 00:11:29] behind whatever cowardly motives they may have, political capital, whatever. Like the time to act is now. And the more people who are calling their offices and telling them that, the better.
Eddie Conway: Kim Kelly, thank you for joining me with that update and we’ll get back to you later on to continue to get updates around that situation.
Kim Kelly: Yeah. Thank you so much. [inaudible 00:11:51].
Eddie Conway: And thank you for joining me at the Real News.
Studio: Cameron Granadino
Production: Cameron Granadino
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


therealnews--2020-03-27--The Nation Editor Dave Zirin On How COVID-19 Is Reshaping Sports

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Marc Steiner : Welcome to the Real News .
I ’ m Marc Steiner , good to have you all with us .
Now COVID-19 is affecting every aspect of our lives and that ’ s true for the world of sports in spades .
The International Olympic Committee finally called off the Tokyo Summer Olympics .
The IOC call themselves , a beacon to the world , but the beacon was Olympian athletes past and present and Olympic committees who called for this postponement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
What ’ s behind this ?
Clearly they worry more about their Olympian profit than the wellbeing of the athletes and all the people who might attend , and that ’ s just the latest news .
Sports are on shutdown everywhere .
Stadiums , arenas , coliseums are closed .
Professional and college sports are on corona hiatus .
What happens to the thousands of men and women who sell you refreshments , who take your tickets , show you to your seats , who clean the stadiums and its lavoratories @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
What happens to them ?
Some owners and players are stepping up to make sure they ’ re paid , but many of the universe could care less .
So how could this alter the world of sports itself once this is done ?
Who better to answer those questions than Dave Zirin , who wrote about all this in a series of articles for The Nation magazine and joins us now .
Welcome back , Dave .
Good to have you with us .
Dave Zirin : It ’ s great @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Steiner : And Dave Zirin , of course , is The Nation magazine ’ s sports editor , the author of eight books on the politics of sports .
His most recent being Brazil ’ s Dance with the Devil , The Olympic Cup , The Olympics , and the Fight for Democracy .
He hosts The Nation ’ s Edge of Sports podcast and co-hosts at WPFW ’ s The Collision with Etan Thomas and still has time to talk to us for a minute .
So , Dave , let ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ step backwards for a moment before we talk about the Olympics or anything else , I want to focus on an article you did , a conversation with Dr. Adia Benton .
And it was really fascinating in terms of how looking at this broader question of sports and the coronavirus and how different aspects of the sports games have responded to it differently .
Talk a bit about what that conversation was about .
Dave Zirin : Well , yeah , I talked to Dr. Benton who is very experienced in these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sports world has responded to the coronavirus .
And one of the things that we talked about is how uneven it ’ s been throughout the sports world , or at least when the time we did that interview was incredibly uneven .
You had leagues like the National Basketball Association shut down very quickly , particularly after all star center Rudy Gobert was found to have coronavirus , which led to a lot of awareness among other players getting tested .
And then the question of why were they getting tests even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the population who needed them ?
So that was a whole ball of worms or sorry a can of worms , ball of wax .
Dave Zirin : Yeah , all that good stuff .
And as we went through it , there were other sports as well that I think reflect a lot about the sports , like the NCAA was very late to cancel March Madness .
And one of the reasons why is that they get 89 % of their operating revenue from the highly exploitative festival that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there was that aspect of it .
Then you have other sports , which we might deem more red state sports like NASCAR and Ultimate Fighting Championship , which were extremely slow to recognize the reality of the coronavirus .
And then at long last , you have the Olympics , the last scoundrel if you will , deciding that they were only going to shut down operations this week and only deciding , as you said , because of an absolute upsurge from athletes and national federations .
Marc Steiner : The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maybe add the NCAA into this as well , I mean , this really has to do with the domination of sports by money , by big money , by huge profits .
I mean that ’ s what ’ s driving the reluctance to say no , to say we ’ ve got to stop .
And I think that ’ s something that it ’ s not talked about enough .
Dave Zirin : Absolutely .
If you don ’ t understand the billions of dollars at stake , you can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made as quickly as they were or as slowly as they were .
For example , when it comes to the National Basketball Association , one could be very cynical and say because the players are paid so much money , they constitute investments on behalf of the billionaire class of franchise owners and therefore , that they wanted to shut down the league in order to protect their investments in the NCAA .
They obviously invest no salary in the players themselves .
It ’ s all pure profit off the top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And so there , there was a different kind of social weight to keep the trains moving on time .
Marc Steiner : When we talk about the NBA , before I go back to the Olympics for a minute , this is really interesting to me , you wrote about a whole group of players , Zion Williamson and Giannis Antetokounmpo .
And others who- Marc Steiner : Thank you .
Who put their money up saying we ’ re going to pay the workers in these stadiums .
And you had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tony Ressler of the Atlanta Hawks doing some similar stuff .
And this is a real divide there .
I mean , we ’ re talking about men and women who work these stadiums make very little money , clean up our crap in the bathrooms could be left out to hang to dry .
But there are players with class consciousness that are actually stepping up and saying , “ We ’ re not going to let that happen.
” Dave Zirin : Yeah , and a recent example of this , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that got a lot of publicity this week , was with the Philadelphia 76ers where their All-Star center , Joel Embiid said he was going to give $ 500,000 to pay the workers and that so humiliated the ownership and embarrassed them , that they put out a statement just yesterday that they would pay their workers during the duration of this crisis .
And that was something that they were not going to do until Embiid stepped up and put his money down .
I do think that there is this strong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this often as , these are millionaire athletes and they play a game and all the tropes that are used against athletes and class consciousness .
You have to remember the backgrounds that many of these athletes come from are extremely working class and at times very impoverished backgrounds .
So there is this strong connection that these athletes have with the workers at the stadiums , this strong connection of what it means to struggle to survive .
That ’ s something that the ownership class just will never understand .
Marc @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first questions is who are these bloody billionaires who could give a crap about the men and women who work in these stadiums ?
I mean , it ’ s almost like they are liberal view of conservative Trump ’ s voice that action when it comes to these people ’ s lives of working class .
It ’ s just unconscionable .
I ’ m sorry to be so … It enrages me .
Dave Zirin : It is enraging and it ’ s a microcosm because I think it should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little the billionaire class has done since this thing has started .
I mean , where are they ?
I mean , all the time we ’ re told that we need to have a plutocracy in this country and this incredible gap between rich and poor because of philanthropy .
Because if we actually did progressive taxation on the super rich , they would stop giving money to these charities .
And yet , I don ’ t see it since coronavirus came forward .
I don ’ t see them stepping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually , it ’ s embarrassing .
It would shame a nation of savages what the billionaire class has done in this country , which is nearly nothing , or trying to lobby Congress to make sure that this bill that ’ s going through is as much of a slush fund for the super rich as possible .
It ’ s disgusting .
Now when you talk about professional sports owners , they tend to fall into one of two categories .
They are either legacy owners .
So their grandparents were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the backs of enslaved people in this country , or on the railroads .
And then this is the money that they have now .
It ’ s been generational wealth that ’ s been passed down and only become more concentrated .
Or , you have people who made huge amounts of money in the tech bubble or in the world of Bain Capital style and investments , hedge fund investments , hedge fund managers who ’ ve made out like bandits .
And then they buy these teams as almost like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve got old money and new money and there is always a tension between old money and new money when it comes to franchise bosses and how they argue with each other , oftentimes when they bicker .
But at the end of the day , they ’ re just hostile brothers and their solidarity is with them before it ’ s ever going to be with the players , let alone stadium workers .
Marc Steiner : There ’ re couple of questions about the future , I mean , how do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nature of sports ?
I mean , we ’ re going to see the entire seasons being canceled .
It changes nature of capital investments of sports and what they get out of it .
I remember back in the day , growing up in the 50s as a kid playing ball , all the players actually lived in your neighborhood because nobody made all that money .
They were just playing the game .
So how do you think this might change the nature of sports itself ?
Dave Zirin : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mark .
I mean , I think if everything changes coming out of this coronavirus pandemic , and I do think a lot is going to change going forward , you ’ re either going to see sports become a panacea for the society that ’ s trying to normalize itself .
I think that ’ s very possible .
Or you ’ re going to see sports become something that ’ s left on the curve , especially in terms of attending live events because of fear of a regeneration of viruses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of occurring or reoccurring pandemics , live sporting attendance is going to take a tumble .
That ’ s going to take a huge bite out of the profits of ownership .
That means it ’ s going to take a big bite out of salaries of the players themselves because … and then it ’ s going to take a bite out of the salaries of stadium workers because , pardon my French , but when it comes to trickle down economics , the shit always rolls downhill .
Dave Zirin : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to see is what amounts to a regressive taxation in the world of sports as the athletes and the workers are forced to pay for the crisis that coronavirus could inflict on the world of sports .
Marc Steiner : What about the Olympics ?
Let ’ s end with the Olympics , where this might take the Olympics .
I mean , they were forced to cancel this out again .
We ’ re talking about tens or hundreds of millions dollars in profit for these companies who support the Olympics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Olympics ?
They ’ re talking about maybe 2021 maybe the Olympics .
They haven ’ t been canceled since World War II .
So what about its future ?
Dave Zirin : Well , I think there is going to be a real reassessment about these kinds of global mega events , whether you ’ re talking about the World Cup , whether you ’ re talking about the Olympics and how they can be staged in a way that ’ s healthy for the globe at large .
Whether you ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which is heavy of these games , or whether you ’ re talking about just what the games do to host countries , particularly working people in host countries , talking about the debt that a country has to acquire and that is required , the displacement that takes place when people are pushed out of their homes to build stadiums or the athlete ’ s village , the militarization of public space , which always comes with the Olympics .
Like the arming of a security state that doesn ’ t always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Olympics are over , particularly in terms of whether you ’ re talking about … in Brazil for example , drones that were used , facial recognition software , all things that were put in place for the Olympics that never got put back in their box .
So I think there is going to have to be a reassessment of whether those things are first of all , should exist in the world that we want to live in .
And second of all , in an age of global pandemics , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global events where hundreds of thousands of people gather in a given city and then return to their countries ?
It seems like a way to put diseases on fast forward and viruses on fast forward when we should be talking about containment .
Marc Steiner : This [ inaudible 00:12:47 ] to me it ’ s like the contradictions of capitalism as seen through the pain of this pandemic , which also capitalism had some root in the cause of the pandemic .
It also has to do with capitalism development and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really raises the contradictions , I think in ways that people have not seen up close as this .
Marc Steiner : Well , Dave Zirin it ’ s always a pleasure to talk with you .
I really appreciate your writing and your taking the time for us here at the Real News and I look forward to many more conversations .
Dave Zirin : Thank you so much .
And I want to say how much I really appreciate the Real News Network for everything Real News is doing right now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this pandemic period .
So thank you for the work you ’ re doing , Mark , and thank you all the engineers and producers that make this possible .
Marc Steiner : I appreciate that and I appreciate you .
And I ’ m Marc Steiner here at the Real News Network .
Thank you all for joining us .
Let us know what you think .
Give us some ideas and take care .

Many billionaire sports moguls, NCAA officials, and Olympic leaders seem to care more about profit than the well-being of athletes or fans.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Marc Steiner: Welcome to the Real News. I’m Marc Steiner, good to have you all with us. Now COVID-19 is affecting every aspect of our lives and that’s true for the world of sports in spades. The International Olympic Committee finally called off the Tokyo Summer Olympics. The IOC call themselves, a beacon to the world, but the beacon was Olympian athletes past and present and Olympic committees who called for this postponement, forcing the IOC to cancel games. What’s behind this? Clearly they worry more about their Olympian profit than the wellbeing of the athletes and all the people who might attend, and that’s just the latest news.
Sports are on shutdown everywhere. Stadiums, arenas, coliseums are closed. Professional and college sports are on corona hiatus. What happens to the thousands of men and women who sell you refreshments, who take your tickets, show you to your seats, who clean the stadiums and its lavoratories, who probably work for minimum wage? What happens to them? Some owners and players are stepping up to make sure they’re paid, but many of the universe could care less. So how could this alter the world of sports itself once this is done? Who better to answer those questions than Dave Zirin, who wrote about all this in a series of articles for The Nation magazine and joins us now. Welcome back, Dave. Good to have you with us.
Dave Zirin: It’s great to be here, Marc.
Marc Steiner: And Dave Zirin, of course, is The Nation magazine’s sports editor, the author of eight books on the politics of sports. His most recent being Brazil’s Dance with the Devil, The Olympic Cup, The Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy. He hosts The Nation’s Edge of Sports podcast and co-hosts at WPFW’s The Collision with Etan Thomas and still has time to talk to us for a minute.
So, Dave, let’s just begin with … Take a step backwards for a moment before we talk about the Olympics or anything else, I want to focus on an article you did, a conversation with Dr. Adia Benton. And it was really fascinating in terms of how looking at this broader question of sports and the coronavirus and how different aspects of the sports games have responded to it differently. Talk a bit about what that conversation was about.
Dave Zirin: Well, yeah, I talked to Dr. Benton who is very experienced in these matters about the ways in which the sports world has responded to the coronavirus. And one of the things that we talked about is how uneven it’s been throughout the sports world, or at least when the time we did that interview was incredibly uneven. You had leagues like the National Basketball Association shut down very quickly, particularly after all star center Rudy Gobert was found to have coronavirus, which led to a lot of awareness among other players getting tested. And then the question of why were they getting tests even though they were asymptomatic ahead of people in the population who needed them? So that was a whole ball of worms or sorry a can of worms, ball of wax.
Marc Steiner: Ball, can.
Dave Zirin: Yeah, all that good stuff. And as we went through it, there were other sports as well that I think reflect a lot about the sports, like the NCAA was very late to cancel March Madness. And one of the reasons why is that they get 89% of their operating revenue from the highly exploitative festival that is bracketology in the NCAA tournament. So there was that aspect of it. Then you have other sports, which we might deem more red state sports like NASCAR and Ultimate Fighting Championship, which were extremely slow to recognize the reality of the coronavirus. And then at long last, you have the Olympics, the last scoundrel if you will, deciding that they were only going to shut down operations this week and only deciding, as you said, because of an absolute upsurge from athletes and national federations.
Marc Steiner: The Olympics themselves, and you can actually maybe add the NCAA into this as well, I mean, this really has to do with the domination of sports by money, by big money, by huge profits. I mean that’s what’s driving the reluctance to say no, to say we’ve got to stop. And I think that’s something that it’s not talked about enough.
Dave Zirin: Absolutely. If you don’t understand the billions of dollars at stake, you can’t understand why these decisions were made as quickly as they were or as slowly as they were. For example, when it comes to the National Basketball Association, one could be very cynical and say because the players are paid so much money, they constitute investments on behalf of the billionaire class of franchise owners and therefore, that they wanted to shut down the league in order to protect their investments in the NCAA. They obviously invest no salary in the players themselves. It’s all pure profit off the top when it comes to the players. And so there, there was a different kind of social weight to keep the trains moving on time.
Marc Steiner: When we talk about the NBA, before I go back to the Olympics for a minute, this is really interesting to me, you wrote about a whole group of players, Zion Williamson and Giannis Antetokounmpo. And others who-
Dave Zirin: Antetokounmpo.
Marc Steiner: Thank you. Who put their money up saying we’re going to pay the workers in these stadiums. And you had people like Cuban of the Mavericks and Tony Ressler of the Atlanta Hawks doing some similar stuff. And this is a real divide there. I mean, we’re talking about men and women who work these stadiums make very little money, clean up our crap in the bathrooms could be left out to hang to dry. But there are players with class consciousness that are actually stepping up and saying, “We’re not going to let that happen.”
Dave Zirin: Yeah, and a recent example of this, since I’ve written that article that got a lot of publicity this week, was with the Philadelphia 76ers where their All-Star center, Joel Embiid said he was going to give $500,000 to pay the workers and that so humiliated the ownership and embarrassed them, that they put out a statement just yesterday that they would pay their workers during the duration of this crisis. And that was something that they were not going to do until Embiid stepped up and put his money down.
I do think that there is this strong connection, because I know we view this often as, these are millionaire athletes and they play a game and all the tropes that are used against athletes and class consciousness. You have to remember the backgrounds that many of these athletes come from are extremely working class and at times very impoverished backgrounds. So there is this strong connection that these athletes have with the workers at the stadiums, this strong connection of what it means to struggle to survive. That’s something that the ownership class just will never understand.
Marc Steiner: I mean, one of the first questions is who are these bloody billionaires who could give a crap about the men and women who work in these stadiums? I mean, it’s almost like they are liberal view of conservative Trump’s voice that action when it comes to these people’s lives of working class. It’s just unconscionable. I’m sorry to be so … It enrages me.
Dave Zirin: It is enraging and it’s a microcosm because I think it should be enraging to all of us how little the billionaire class has done since this thing has started. I mean, where are they? I mean, all the time we’re told that we need to have a plutocracy in this country and this incredible gap between rich and poor because of philanthropy. Because if we actually did progressive taxation on the super rich, they would stop giving money to these charities. And yet, I don’t see it since coronavirus came forward.
I don’t see them stepping up to do much of anything and actually, it’s embarrassing. It would shame a nation of savages what the billionaire class has done in this country, which is nearly nothing, or trying to lobby Congress to make sure that this bill that’s going through is as much of a slush fund for the super rich as possible. It’s disgusting. Now when you talk about professional sports owners, they tend to fall into one of two categories. They are either legacy owners.
So their grandparents were the people who built their wealth on the backs of enslaved people in this country, or on the railroads. And then this is the money that they have now. It’s been generational wealth that’s been passed down and only become more concentrated. Or, you have people who made huge amounts of money in the tech bubble or in the world of Bain Capital style and investments, hedge fund investments, hedge fund managers who’ve made out like bandits. And then they buy these teams as almost like hobbies for themselves.
So you’ve got old money and new money and there is always a tension between old money and new money when it comes to franchise bosses and how they argue with each other, oftentimes when they bicker. But at the end of the day, they’re just hostile brothers and their solidarity is with them before it’s ever going to be with the players, let alone stadium workers.
Marc Steiner: There’re couple of questions about the future, I mean, how do you think this COVID-19 pandemic could change the nature of sports? I mean, we’re going to see the entire seasons being canceled. It changes nature of capital investments of sports and what they get out of it. I remember back in the day, growing up in the 50s as a kid playing ball, all the players actually lived in your neighborhood because nobody made all that money. They were just playing the game. So how do you think this might change the nature of sports itself?
Dave Zirin: That’s the great unknown, Mark. I mean, I think if everything changes coming out of this coronavirus pandemic, and I do think a lot is going to change going forward, you’re either going to see sports become a panacea for the society that’s trying to normalize itself. I think that’s very possible. Or you’re going to see sports become something that’s left on the curve, especially in terms of attending live events because of fear of a regeneration of viruses.
If we live in an era of occurring or reoccurring pandemics, live sporting attendance is going to take a tumble. That’s going to take a huge bite out of the profits of ownership. That means it’s going to take a big bite out of salaries of the players themselves because … and then it’s going to take a bite out of the salaries of stadium workers because, pardon my French, but when it comes to trickle down economics, the shit always rolls downhill.
Marc Steiner: Amen.
Dave Zirin: And so, what you’re going to see is what amounts to a regressive taxation in the world of sports as the athletes and the workers are forced to pay for the crisis that coronavirus could inflict on the world of sports.
Marc Steiner: What about the Olympics? Let’s end with the Olympics, where this might take the Olympics. I mean, they were forced to cancel this out again. We’re talking about tens or hundreds of millions dollars in profit for these companies who support the Olympics. So where might that take the Olympics? They’re talking about maybe 2021 maybe the Olympics. They haven’t been canceled since World War II. So what about its future?
Dave Zirin: Well, I think there is going to be a real reassessment about these kinds of global mega events, whether you’re talking about the World Cup, whether you’re talking about the Olympics and how they can be staged in a way that’s healthy for the globe at large. Whether you’re talking about the environmental impact, which is heavy of these games, or whether you’re talking about just what the games do to host countries, particularly working people in host countries, talking about the debt that a country has to acquire and that is required, the displacement that takes place when people are pushed out of their homes to build stadiums or the athlete’s village, the militarization of public space, which always comes with the Olympics.
Like the arming of a security state that doesn’t always unwind back to normal days when the Olympics are over, particularly in terms of whether you’re talking about … in Brazil for example, drones that were used, facial recognition software, all things that were put in place for the Olympics that never got put back in their box. So I think there is going to have to be a reassessment of whether those things are first of all, should exist in the world that we want to live in. And second of all, in an age of global pandemics, do we really want to have these global events where hundreds of thousands of people gather in a given city and then return to their countries? It seems like a way to put diseases on fast forward and viruses on fast forward when we should be talking about containment.
Marc Steiner: This [inaudible 00:12:47] to me it’s like the contradictions of capitalism as seen through the pain of this pandemic, which also capitalism had some root in the cause of the pandemic. It also has to do with capitalism development and exploitation. But the fact that this really raises the contradictions, I think in ways that people have not seen up close as this.
Dave Zirin: Absolutely.
Marc Steiner: Well, Dave Zirin it’s always a pleasure to talk with you. I really appreciate your writing and your taking the time for us here at the Real News and I look forward to many more conversations.
Dave Zirin: Thank you so much. And I want to say how much I really appreciate the Real News Network for everything Real News is doing right now. We need unembedded media so much in this pandemic period. So thank you for the work you’re doing, Mark, and thank you all the engineers and producers that make this possible.
Marc Steiner: I appreciate that and I appreciate you. And I’m Marc Steiner here at the Real News Network. Thank you all for joining us. Let us know what you think. Give us some ideas and take care.
Studio: Will Arenas
Production: Will Arenas
Related
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.


therealnews--2020-03-27--Despite Crisis, Auditors Continue To Confront Aggressive Policing

PAR guest James Freeman discusses the aftermath of a police chase that nearly killed two bystanders : a mother and @ @ @ @

Host & Producer
Stephen Janis is an award winning investigative reporter turned documentary filmmaker. His first feature film, The Friendliest Town was distributed by Gravitas Ventures and won an award of distinction from The Impact Doc Film Festival, and a humanitarian award from The Indie Film Fest. He is the co-host and creator of The Police Accountability Report on The Real News Network, which has received more than 10,000,000 views on YouTube. His work as a reporter has been featured on a variety of national shows including the Netflix reboot of Unsolved Mysteries, Dead of Night on Investigation Discovery Channel, Relentless on NBC, and Sins of the City on TV One.
He has co-authored several books on policing, corruption, and the root causes of violence including Why Do We Kill: The Pathology of Murder in Baltimore and You Can’t Stop Murder: Truths about Policing in Baltimore and Beyond. He is also the co-host of the true crime podcast Land of the Unsolved. Prior to joining The Real News, Janis won three Capital Emmys for investigative series working as an investigative producer for WBFF. Follow him on Twitter.