Economy

By Jake Johnson, staff writer | – ( Commondreams.org) – “In the U.S., the richest 0.1% control a bigger share of the pie than at any time since 1929.” The 500 richest people in the world, all of whom are billionaires, gained a combined $1.2 trillion in wealth in 2019, further exacerbating inequities that have […]

Education

How the Education Department Is Ripping Off Defrauded Students

Jill Richardson

Students who got defrauded by for-profit colleges were going to get loan forgiveness — until Betsy DeVos showed up.

Mental Health

Who’s Afraid of Medicare for All?

OtherWords

Not ordinary Democrats or independents — just insurance companies, lobbyists, and old-line politicians.

Democracy

From Tory Landslide to Trump non-Impeachment: Can Filthy Rich Liars sink Democracy in Britain and the U.S.?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The danger to democracy posed by our new information system plus our new levels of wealth concentration cannot be overestimated. The degree of inequality both in the US and the UK is now virtually unprecedented, as is media consolidation. That is, fewer and much wealthier people own more and more […]

Plutocracy

Billionaires Can buy our Presidential Election at $100/ vote and Still Make Money!

OtherWords

( Otherwords.org ) – America’s wealthiest billionaires buy a national election at $100 a vote — and still make money. Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York’s mayors since 1942, hosted billionaire Michael Bloomberg for three terms. The first of these terms began after Bloomberg, then the Republican candidate for mayor, spent an incredible […]

Brazil

Beef and Oil: Are Brazil’s Bolsonaro and Saudi’s MBS a Match Made in Heaven?

Tori Avila

By Vitoria Avila Fioravanti | – Sao Paulo (Special to Informed Comment) – Beef, oil and veiling and a murdered journalist have catapulted the burgeoning relationship between Brazil and the controversial Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into the headlines for the first time this fall, though the two countries have had formal diplomatic relations since 1968. […]

Banking

Is the Fed’s Agenda a Threat to Trump’s Reelection?

John Buell

(Special to Informed Comment) – President Trump recently reported on another one of those perfect conversations. Jerome Powell and he purportedly talked about interest rates and the importance of keeping them low to maintain a booming economy. Powell of course reported on no such conversation. In any case, however, the imagined conversation highlighted such issues […]

Inequality

Is it Time for a Billionaire Ban?

OtherWords

By Negin Owliaei | – The wealthiest Americans dominate our airwaves. Let’s hear from someone else for a change. Bill Gates wants you to know he pays taxes. “I’ve paid more than $10 billion in taxes. I’ve paid more than anyone in taxes,” Gates told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin. “But when you say I should […]

Environmentalism

Climate Crisis will Beggar Us: Big Oil needs to Pay for the Damage it Caused

Yes! Magazine

By Tamara Toles O’Laughlin and Bill McKibben | – (Yes! Magazine) – Climate change disproportionately affects poor people and people of color. They should be compensated for their suffering. This month in a Manhattan courthouse, New York State’s attorney general Letitia James argued that ExxonMobil should be held accountable for layers of lies about climate […]