Transcripts For RT Going Underground 20240713

Front line n. H. S. Doctor and dodgy tells us why clapping and charity for Britains National Health Service is just not good enough all the more coming up in todays going underground but 1st last time there was an economic crash major nations bailed out the rich this time around how can we stop the one percent from exploiting coronavirus to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us someone who predicted the 28. 00 crash was economist dean baker hes the cofounder of the center for economic and policy research and he joins me now via skype from utah in the usa thanks so much jeanne for coming on millions with coronavirus hundreds of thousands killed do you see some policymakers actually using cove it to pour money into Financial Services theres been 645000000000 of q. E. Just here for the city of long certainly that is the case and i just try to be a little fair to them in the sense that i think it does make sense for them to try to maintain stability in the Financial Markets so that money is being where the. Its not being given so theyre doing a lot of things that i think are much more pernicious for example the United States they passed a tax cut the 170000000000 over the next decade 17000000000 a year to the Real Estate Industry that literally has nothing to do at least nothing that i or anyone else could think of has nothing to do with the pandemic so this all goes to the very wealthiest people in the country 17000000000 a year for things have nothing to with the pandemic is it a bit like top. Back in 20 us yeah i know it is like tar i mean tarp in again i dont want to defend tarp at all but you know that was at least directly connected to the financial crisis these were banks i mean to my view many most them should be allowed to go under and they were bailed out but that was connect to the financial crisis the case of these Real Estate Tax breaks its just saying oh my god we have a bill has to go through congress were going to put 170000000000. 00 in tax breaks for rich people on it nothing to do with the pen demick for those of those watching who dont know what top is and didnt benefit from the billions of dollars spent thats an Asset Relief Program in the United States off to the 28. 00 crash im going to ask you though now that donald trump is actually signing checks going to americans do you think well ever hear the mantra we content for what it ever again were already hearing it its its infuriating because this is something that was left out we had 2 very large pandemic relief bills that went through congress the 1st one was on the order of 2 trillion the 2nd one. Rough number here about 500. 00 billions of very very large bills both of them left out substantial aid for state and local governments are state local governments get most their money from sales Tax Income Tax those Revenue Sources have plummeted at the same time theyre facing massive demands on their Services Health care and other services to deal with that endemic so they have this massive shortfall and theres efforts by at least some of the democrats to get money for state local governments and Mitch Mcconnell the leader of the republicans a senate saying oh im worried about the debt so were already hearing that i want to come back to today with the u. N. Repertoire in poverty complain that british policies of astaire and he killed tens of thousands of people the systematic misery thing of a population significant part of the population here what was the point of austerity of the 2008 crash that ruined so many lives. To try and reduce the debt was a new point a tool only zias since the 28. 00 crash now that we have coded i would say there was absolutely no point i mean there were arguments made about how high debt levels would impede growth would lead to a risk of a crisis and those really didnt make sense i mean there were debates among academic economists that im not as i read every last one and im familiar with the general lives of the debate the side arguing that this had Serious Problems that debts create Serious Problems just really didnt have a leg to stand on and one of their famous papers paper by 2 harvard professors Carmen Reinhart and ken rogoff it turned out their big result was based on the spread sheet here so they didnt have a leg to stand on its very hard to see what anyone in the u. K. Hoping to get from austerity we had it as in the us as well not quite as bad but its slowed growth kept people from getting jobs reduced wages it was really bad news for large segments of the population and its very hard to see what the dividend was because one of the architects of austerity in the air in the u. K. Hes now in the editor of a local london paper George Osborne hes expressed support actually Jeremy Kuhlmann successor as they believe to him he is saying already that were going to need austerity in the post pandemic post coronavirus pandemic world is that is that going to be again the policy make is a. Strategy of choice well i cant say how things will turn out there or here but we will see people argue you know its a safe bet and again i mean economists i could give you the evidence and what id like to hold up is japan has ratios of debt to g. D. P. That dwarfs anything were likely to see in the United States and the u. K. Are probably just about anywhere else you could point to and its economy and i say its doing great but it didnt do particularly poorly compared to the us or other economies a you really advising the 4 x. Trade as bond traders. Probably trading from home at the big Financial Institutions to ignore debt to g. D. P. Ratios right that. I sure would i mean again i could go through the arguments where you can have a problem with the large deficit being an issue and a debt can impose a burden in the sense that if you pay high interest on a large debt thats a burden but countries have dealt with that burden the United States our debt service is about 3 and a half percent of g. D. P. In the 1990 s. Very prosperous decade at least in the 2nd half currently our debt service burns around one percent g. D. P. So you know we have a long way to go so this doesnt mean under no circumstances adverb as debt deficit ever pose any problem but were not in those circumstances so its really foolish to say ok we dont have money for the Health Care System we dont have the money to improve our infrastructure deal with Climate Change because the deficits and debt were now in that situation you know your President Donald Trump expressed how disappointed he was repeatedly in the fed about Interest Rates before coronavirus what is it about these Stock Exchange listed banks that they will not pass on the Interest Rate cuts made by Central Banks well im not sure theyre not passing them on they dont pass them on one to one they dont pass them on immediately but if you look at my whole business as a definitely saying theyre not being biased well there are 2 different stories here one is do they generally lower their Interest Rate i think the answer that is yes i mean we have plenty of documentation that you can look at Mortgage Rates you go with a whole set of Interest Rates they do lower their rates now a lot of Small Businesses may not be able to benefit from that because theyre in very questionable financial shape so thats not a question of the fed not you know theyre not passing on low Interest Rates from the fed do it in a situation where you have a restaurant that shut down has no cash reserves doesnt know if it could reopen would you make a loan to that restaurant well whos going to pay the loans in terms of the treasury bills. And the guilt over here is it going to be the Chinese Communist party or is it going to be its going to be pensions you know want them to raid the pensions you know again i cant speak for the u. K. Most familiar with it but in the us i mean one of the big issues that is coming up is you have a number of states that have pension burdens pension debt and you have Mitch Mcconnell the leader of the republicans a senator who quite explicitly said he wants the states and cities to default on that so it doesnt mean workers would see 0 pension but they might see their pensions cut by 102030 percent which is a really big deal for most workers its most their retirement incomes are going about people who were just teachers as firefighters they they are 5060000. 00 a year during their working careers or living on 3040000. 00 retirement if they lose 20 percent of that because they have to cut the pension thats a really big hit now fundamental to the Global Economic aka texture is intellectual property something everyone is looking at as we desperately search for a vaccine against corona virus is this really the end of intellectual property as regards open Source Research on on pharmaceuticals right now because of corona virus because as you know the argument is always being it dean sent to vies is that the parties from looking into medicine this is this is a huge battle and knocking nearly as much attention was the United States as it should because we always have a lot of public funding for pseudocode pharmaceutical research so the United States spends over 40000000000. 00 a year Funding Research the National Institutes of health and the few 1000000000 here and there through other itll be about the tax bat not channel test thats right this is taxpayer funded research and then invariably you get a private company a mirka gilliard whoever might be they get patents and then they charge ridiculous prices for drugs that would otherwise be cheap no. In the case of the pen demick were seeing a massive amount of open source which is fantastic so were having Research Teams in london and korea other places around the world theyre posting their results with the idea that other other researchers will benefit from them so theyre not going to get patents theyre not going to get rich from it theyre going to post their results others will benefit from them theyre getting paid these are mostly people getting paid through the government directly or indirectly so theyre getting their paychecks but they are going to get rich by having a patent getting a really high price but you still have companies in the United States Gilead Sciences which has a patent on rem severe which is some evidence is effective in treating the quran of iris that theyre hoping to make a huge fortune that so this should be a huge battle because youre seeing you know always a say its always the case a large amount public funding in this case the bulk of the money is coming from the public we open Source Research anything that comes out of this should be sold as a generic and again the differences are incredible because almost invariably drugs are cheap to manufacture and distribute so we wont even have an argument about drug present even discuss them if everything was sold without pat monopolies but when you give a company a patent monopoly and its something you need to for your health or your life charge you tens of thousands sometimes hundreds of thousands this should be the end of that but i dont take that for granted well we invite any of those homes into companies on this program im sure they would absolutely deny any profiteering off the back of a taxpayer recent pharmaceuticals you expect joe biden to embrace Something Like what youre just saying because a anyone whos been to k. Street in washington d. C. Knows how big the lobbying that the lobbying of big farmer is in washington this is going to be fairness next star i mean obviously biden has to 1st get in the white house but hes he feels pressure from the left in a way that he hadnt previously so if you compare joe biden to where barack obama was in 20082009. Hes feeling much more pressure from the left the fact that you had the Sanders Campaign the Warren Campaign other efforts that have been really successful mobilizing a lot of voters obviously sanders born to get the nomination but a lot of people did vote for that and bidens aware that so theres going to be pressure from him to come down hard on the pharmaceutical industry but as you say theyre powerful lobby they give money to both democrats and republicans so they its going to be a want bait one of the things thats very much up for grabs both in his campaign what he says and then of course if he actually wins what he does when hes in the White House Well just finally as weve heard that jokes tropes memes about Occupational Health and safety being a. Wearisome budden for big corporations do you see a revolution in Occupational Health and safety now that we realize our companies dont have mosques and basic protection for that what has during this pandemic well i know i have not confident much of revolution but hopefully somewhat of an awakening of the United States where the Occupational Health and Safety Administration came in there and if you get 6970 years under dick nixon so as a republican white house. It originally i think did a fairly good job trying to improve Workplace Safety theyve been weakened over the years with budget cuts and under the Trump Administration theyve basically been prevented from doing their job and in the United States weve had a number of cases i mean theres all sorts of workplaces that are hazardous dont have proper protective equipment but its been most pronounced in the meat packing industry where you all these workers in cramped places with poor ventilation and weve had major outbreaks in a number of meat packing factors across the country and theyve had to shut down trumps response incredibly was to order them to stay open so rather than ensuring that the workers could work there safely he just says open up i think revolution has too much to hope for at least some concern about worker safety would be great. Thank you. Thanks for i mean after the break cancer time bombs in adequate protection 60000 pound death payoffs and threaten for talking to journalists we go to the n. H. S. Frontline and talk to a doctor who caught coronavirus while saving lives in a british hospital also more coming up in part 2 of going underground. So u. S. Economy was booming reeling numbers of people were made homeless. You can work 40 hours d in a week and still not have enough to get housing everybody believes america still is the land of opportunity the reality of. Financially equality and the lack of the Affordable Housing or living minimum wage many people need choice. Thats been a problem with the city. Limits and. Requires resources the most vulnerable are abandoned on the streets to become the invisible comes. Welcome back this week britain clapped again for key workers keeping its people alive after tens of thousands dead what has it been like on the front line of an n. H. S. Arguably cut to ribbons to bail out the city of london after its 2008 crash joining me via skype from london is n. H. S. Oncology dr dorothy thank you so much actual going on with the media the doctors labors Opposition Leader secure starman they all say Boris Johnson is doing his best tell me what happened for you for you to get coronavirus well i think that also 9 is. That its not. Enough and its been far too little far too late and its still not enough so about 3 or 4 weeks ago i was sitting in a clinic with a number of colleagues about to see Cancer Patients some of the most vulnerable patients who are at risk of infection high risk of of death of serious infection and we were sitting there looking at each other and. With no guidance with no government policy at that point we felt very much like we were putting our patients lives at risk and a number of us were very concerned raise these concerns and im very pleased to say our hospital responded extremely well and started to provide that equipment and our concerns were very well justified because within 3 days of clinic i myself tested positive for the current virus and many many of my colleagues and we work in quite close quarters and and they basically we all went down like dominoes and the real real concern that a lot of us have and still have is not only that we were ourselves incredible risk but more our inmate in often cases was that we were cutting our patients the very people we were supposed to be protecting at risk and i was really wracked with guilt for days after my contract since the illness and this will be the same story up and down the country or the government says its doing its best and certainly that keeps saying theres a global shortage of p. P. D. Which is why its been difficult in the n. H. S. A challenge as is being repeated by Mainstream Media journalists as well so do you think more generally it is possible that people are being treated by medical staff that may not have been tested who have coronavirus whether its asymptomatic or even symptomatic maybe. Absolutely we know thats the case that happened with myself and im sorry i just do not buy the the government 6 cases really as i said as too little too late being done we had a warning 3 years ago as we know the reports operation sickness and warned about the gross act of planning the government had drastically bitchy stockpiles for exactly this kind of situation they could have done something about it then they chose not to and we have seen now in that b. B. C. Panorama report which has exposed how woefully and inadequately we were prepared for this kind of crisis i do think that the political choices that have been made here will have cost people their lives essentially well one of our strengths as ministers previously his political rival of the conservative Party Michael gove maintains that they were preparing for a flu pandemic not a coronavirus pandemic in the context of this exercise cygnus which i have to say of course the results and conclusions are still confidential and and top secret we knew from the early reports of china certainly within the medical profession this is behaving nothing until like an average flu it was much more affectionate and the motel of the rate was much much higher and the government was appalled at this at the highest levels so it doesnt wash and you think its quite believable that that medical staff of being using bin bags as p. P. On the front line where i work and im very lucky to work we are extremely well resourced and we did get quite early access to testing and quite early access to p. P. But in other parts of the country theyre not say lucky and so what you will see is stuff get desperate so of course staff had to resort to quite Desperate Measures dr. And there are even told to reboard. Gowns you know this is unheard of and it just shows you again that there is has been a desperate desperate lack of planning and i think best a woeful incompetence well no procedures like that are being reported certainly in. China and cooper and and also with the global south thankfully you did recover from coronavirus but obviously some of your comrades colleagues in the n. H. S. Havent been so lucky what did you make of the 60000 pound pay off of a by Boris Johnson the government to staff in hospitals that die on the front line. There are no words really i would ask the people that came up with that number to take a look in the mirror and think about what their own life and the life of their loved ones would be worth it in monetary valley and i think its absolutely shocking and again it just it really reflects what we ourselves within the n. H. S. Have felt for a number of years now we are not valued we are not valued and this government has made active economic political choices to make us feel that time and time again we feel it in the n. H. S. And even when you pay the ultimate price your family is being told that you are worth an absolute pittance i dont have the words to express what i feel about that but the Mainstream Media and Boris Johnson and his government no doubt completely contradict you where theyve been popping for n. H. S. Staff they value religious stuff as what they say i feel conflicted about. The cutting i think the millions of people across the country are coming out on their doorsteps to relay that gesture i find that extremely moving extremely heartwarming as id similarly the incredible actions of captain tom moore i think as individuals people. Are showing their support the n. H. S. Is a extremely valued institution by the british people by the government it is not and flourish johnson and resewn ak and every other. Architects of the gradual decimation of n. H. S. Working conditions for them to come out in their doorsteps and to clap us while simple taney a slate. D. Valuing d. Investing and actively breaking up the n. H. S. And its just the absolute hypocrisy that weve seen from this government for the last 10 years theres been widespread. Support her white spread surprise widespread. Alarm about the underreporting of figures of deaths for coronavirus in britain versus the way figures are reported all around the world what do you make of the reports that the chief coroner for england and wales has issued guidance apparently not to examine failures in p p when considering dead bodies the the dead from corona virus it is a very very closely related. Respect for people contracting this disease if they do not have protection. We are much more likely to contract the disease and potentially if you get serious a serious illness you can die i say so it can all over look at that as a cause its a fact its what people dying and. It is extremely worrying extremely worrying and what one would wonder why that is being ignored and one that suspects and the government are looking to avoid the line as well as alarm about kadhum deaths belatedly in the media and by the government arguably there is also increasing alarm about cancer and youre in an oncology doctor what do you make of matt hancock or science and Health Secretary saying that Cancer Treatment is unaffected by the current pandemic. Its not true i mean. All of us. Oncologists i think unanimously surgeons radiotherapy Doctors Medical oncologists. Weve seen and alarming reduction in the amount of treatment we of course are trying ourselves to balance. Whether or not patients would be more at risk from coming into hospital and trying to rationalize. High risk cases particularly the elderly people who have other comorbidities. But to say that Cancer Treatments have not been affected is simply untrue and what we are increasingly concerned about is what we think are going to be the 2nd wave consequences of this and a number of doctors have written about this now. And there has been some quite extensive modeling on basically the numbers of lives that will be lost from us delaying treatments and its likely to be in the many thousands to us treating people we know if cancers are not being treated and not being diagnosed they will be growing and progressing. And people are going to presents in a much more extreme states and some may even be untreatable and thats something that we really have to try and address and before i think the full the cost is too high again i think if planning had been done differently i think if we didnt enter this country mic with a grossly under resourced. Health service if we had sufficient start if we hadnt seen Cancer Centers being closed. When the numbers of cancer cases are increasingly expanded and i dont think we would have had to have made the difficult choices to shut down as many Cancer Services nothing youre saying correlates at all with what we hear at daily downing street press briefings that include the chief medical officer the chief scientific officer and numerous ministers have you been threatened against talking to the media you know of other medical practitioners and stuff that theyve been threatened and told not to speak to the media about. Concerns like the ones you raised here so in the n. H. S. Is a general encouragement to not frighten the public if things arent going well and i think it would be fair to say that things are not going well at the moment and lots of stars feel scared to speak up and there are lots of well known well publicized cases. And staff who have been targeted as whistle blow is and when they do speak up could take me about issues around Management Issues around policy about investment. And the whole crisis in the situation so yes i would say im very aware of a culture of pressure almost to not speak out negatively about the decision was that it being made but i think i myself am not been threatened who asked not to speak. But in general i would say scar stuff a scared yes or ghastly raglan doughty thank you thats it for the show on this the 75th anniversary of stalins liberation of berlin which paved the way for the defeat of fascism and the apartheid hero Dennis Goldberg passed away this week he was sentenced with Nelson Mandela rivonia and never stopped fighting for global justice you want your interview with him on our you tube channel on monday and the globalization heroine talked of on the machine that explains the source of coronavirus stay safe followers and social media and see that. I guess you know were going to talk about more about town you know jobs are not really needed you know other part of this Lockdown People assume that millions and millions of people to use in their job would have something material to impact on the fortunes of the economy as a whole but no it only affects the surface clubs as a. Matter of fact its a great opportunity if youre in the banking only again we see stocks trading higher and bank stocks will mean higher workers are needed taxes are needed when you can. Infer money for turbo burn the only. Reason. We have the resources. Were out of the you know already were out of the current you know we have the right man weve. Run our