Image is from this Washington Post article, which shows the Shabara artisanal mine, where cobalt and copper are dug out by hand.
This preamble got much of its information from this article in ROAPE, and this article in People's World.
Countries in the imperial core have increasingly advocated for Green New Deals, whose primary goal is to re-attract manufacturing capability to somewhat counter deindustrialization, and then export some of this renewable energy generation to other countries to gain profit. Just as the initial wave of industrialization was built on massive resource exploitation of coal and iron and then oil, this wave is being built on exploiting metals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements. The DRC is one of the best case studies on the planet for understanding the new dynamic.
The DRC is, to your average Western country, a resource bonanza. It is the 11th largest country by land area, and contains lithium, copper, and cobalt in massive quantities, famously containing two thirds of the world's known cobalt supplies. The Western world and their institutions swarmed the DRC like piranhas, dismantling the Congo's sovereignty over its natural resources. China was not terribly involved in the privatisation process, but has stepped in to benefit from the West's work - Chinese corporations account for 40% of the production of major Congo cobalt projects (and 15 out of 19 cobalt mines), with Switzerland at 30% via Glencore, and Kazakhstan at 22%. The US, for whatever reason, withdrew from majority ownership of some projects in the mid-2010s, but is now anxious about China's position in the cobalt markets. Western countries in general have spent their time lately drawing up critical minerals strategies both to keep capitalism chugging along in their own countries, and attempt to weaken China, which invariably involves the Congo.
The Congo has attempted to resist imperialist encroachment. In 2018, the Kaliba administration asserted a new Mining Code which raised tax and royalty rates and increased state ownership in mining firms from 5% to 10%, and these changes were bitterly resisted by the West right to the end. Since 2019, under the Tshisekedi administration, the government established the state-owned EGC, which sought to take control over the processing and export of artisanal and small-scale cobalt production, which comprises 5-15% of cobalt production in the Congo. More recently, Tshisekedi is planning to move up the manufacturing chain - instead of merely mining cobalt, they want to refine it there and then make electric vehicle batteries and other such products with it, which would be an industry worth trillions of dollars. But so far, there hasn't been much movement away from having mining exports as the backbone of the economy, and it's doubtful that plans to just keep doing this until they get rich enough to build refineries and factories will work. The profits mostly go to Western countries and have failed to produce significant benefits for Congolese workers, nor resulted in the emergence of domestic industries so far. Reforms will help a little, but only a little, and they remain fundamentally constrained by the markets and the whims of the West.
Meanwhile, war and mass displacements have put immense stress on the country. There are 7.1 million displaced people in the DRC due to various conflicts and mass displacements - most recently, the war between the Congolese army and M23. Hundreds of thousands of people continue to be displaced every few months, and across the whole country, over 26 million require humanitarian aid. 6 million people have died in the eastern DRC in the last three decades, with hundreds of armed groups, both domestic and foreign, battling for resources and territory.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
![](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/a46018fb-b46d-4069-b40f-4251f6d0b760.png)
I know we talk a lot about banking or real estate blowing up, but like 1/3rd of all Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings (debt resturcturing) in the US this year are healthcare firms. Healthcare companies are getting absolutely pummelled right now and it doesn't seem to show much signs of slowing down. It's entirely possible that we get M4A through sheer dumb luck of the US healthcare system imploding under the weight of interest rates and inflation.
How is it possible to go bankrupt as a fucking medical parasite in the USA? Debt for stupid expansion? Being undercut and consumed by larger players? I don't get it
Profit margins in healthcare aren't all that amazing, so a lot of firms, especially non-profit ones, rely on debt since they can't raise equity. When interest rates go up, that means higher payments on new debt. When inflation goes up, that means a decrease in margin due to increased costs. Medicare/Medicaid reimbursemnts haven't really kept up with inflation in terms of year-over-year increases. The No Surprises Act, which prevents things like patients getting an out-of-network bill from a physician at an in-network facility, because the facility outsourced staffing to a for-profit physical staffing company, has an arbitration process that hasn't been properly funded by Congress, so there are something like 100K claims from 2022 that still haven't been arbitrated.
The for-profit firms also have to deal with debt, just usually as a result of a leveraged buyout by a PE fund.
Maybe its hospitals and clinics being hollowed out by asset management funds despite how those same funds tend to turn them into regional monopolies for extra cash.
So, other than just the normal capitalistic drive to monopolize on the part of for-profits, part of what drives consolidation on the provider side is trying to keep up with consolidation of the health insurance industry. Basically, contract negotiation is a big dick measuring contest. If you are a small hospital with other competitors in the market, and there is one or two big health insurers, they will pit the systems against each other to get the lowest reimbursement rate. The only way for health systems to really deal with that is through their own consolidation, until there isn't any one else for the payors to negotiate with. Even then, if you are a monopoly system in an area that payors don't give a shit about, like with rural health systems, you are probably fucked anyways, because the payors don't have enough patients out there for it to affect their bottom line in terms of whether you go out of business.
Basically the whole system is fucking stupid.
I agree with this. It’s possible that healthcare firms saddled with large debt loads but also must pay dividends to shareholders just don’t have enough cash to service debt in a high interest environment. Ch11 is just a reorganization/restructure of debt as opposed to Ch7 which is a liquidation.
Also smaller firms may just be losing out due to economies of scale of much larger firms who can control costs through centralization and can also absorb lower revenues to force competitors out of the market.
what are their reasons for bankruptcy?
Chapter 11 Bankruptcy is for debt restructuring, meaning they are doing well enough to continue as a business but can't make their debt payments. Usually it means they have positive operating profit, also known as earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT). The goal is to do something like get debt forgiven or have terms changes.
Alright so it sounds like corporate raiders ala Bain Capital.
That's the case with some of the for-profit companies, but a lot of health systems are non-profits, so investors wouldn't be involved in that.
No, private investors have been buying medical providers: https://www.theverge.com/23758492/private-equity-brendan-ballou-plunder-finance-doj
I am aware, but those are for-profit firms they are buying.
I don't follow, how would that lead to public healthcare?
Basically if the whole thing collapses, the government is the only entity capable of propping it up. That doesn't mean we get M4A, but it's probably the closest we will get for a while to a situation that forces the discussion in a way nothing else really has before.
Would it be a bailing out the banks again situation? Or is it so different that it can't be compared?
It's definitely possible the government could just bail out the bondholders and let them take over the non-profits, although I am not a lawyer so I'm not sure of the legality currently.
oh, thank you