EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR THURSDAY, AUGUST 5, 2021

Triple Whammy About To Slam the United States

Aug. 4, 2021 (EIRNS)—The U.S. is careening towards a “perfect storm” of major social and economic crises over the next couple of months—just as we hit the 50th anniversary of Lyndon LaRouche’s stunning forecast of August 15, 1971, when Nixon pulled the plug on the Bretton Woods financial system, and set the country on a downward physical economic plunge which now threatens our very existence, precisely as LaRouche had warned would occur.

With the COVID crisis exploding again in the U.S. and internationally, and the global financial system hanging by a thread, the U.S. is looking at: 1) mass evictions of millions of renters in early October (postponed two months by last-minute action yesterday by the Biden administration); 2) a wave of millions of mortgage defaults and foreclosures in the same time frame; and 3) the end of unemployment help for millions of Americans.

And all of this is bearing down on the U.S. as the green-Malthusian energy and industrial blackout plan of the British Empire is scheduled to enter its operational phase internationally, with the COP26 meeting in Glasgow in early November.

On the eviction crisis, the can was successfully kicked down the road by exactly two months, to Oct. 3. The CDC announced yesterday—after days of buck-passing among Congress, the Supreme Court and the Administration—that “counties experiencing substantial and high levels of community transmission levels” of COVID-19 would have the current eviction ban extended to Oct. 3. That reportedly covers 80% of the counties and 90% of the population in the country.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated on Aug. 3:

“The emergence of the Delta variant has led to a rapid acceleration of community transmission in the United States, putting more Americans at increased risk, especially if they are unvaccinated.... This moratorium [on evictions] is the right thing to do to keep people in their homes and out of congregate settings where COVID-19 spreads.”

In terms of renters, more than 15 million people live in households that owe as much as $20 billion to their landlords, according to the Aspen Institute. As of July 5, roughly 3.6 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.

As for mortgages, at the beginning of August at least 1.75 million homeowners remain in forbearance, or 3.5% of all homes in the U.S., according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. About 1.5 million of the 1.75 million in forbearance are at least 90 days behind—a number roughly equivalent to that reported in March 2021—and at least 20% of them won’t be able to forestall foreclosure past September, according to the Washington Post.

But the eviction moratorium doesn’t even begin to touch the underlying problem. Even Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) stated yesterday: “This is a short-term, long-term strategy. When in fact the moratorium ends, we absolutely cannot be in the same place we are in now. ... We need to have some legislation passed in Congress, in the House, especially.” But there is no indication that she or anyone else in Congress is thinking at this point of anything other than more bailout funds, which will of course do nothing to solve the underlying problem.

The proper approach is LaRouche’s Homeowners and Bank Protection Act, or HBPA, which provides the required policy—which emphatically includes the bankruptcy reorganization of the entire international speculative bubble, and kick-starting the U.S. physical economy with massive investments in physical infrastructure projects at home and abroad, along with other nations such as China, Russia and India.

It is clearly time to study the wise words of Lyndon LaRouche. And that will be the central theme of the LaRouche Legacy Foundation’s upcoming Aug. 14 conference: “So, Are You Finally Willing To Learn Economics?”