Poverty

By Omar Ocampo and Chuck Collins | – ( Inequality.org) – The number of U.S. citizens filing for unemployment increased to 38.6 million since March 18, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over the same two months, the wealth of U.S. billionaires has surged $434 billion – an increase of 15 percent. The combined […]

Employment

Not much of a Safety Net: Millions of Americans lost their Health Care and Apartments when COVID-19 Took their Jobs

The Conversation

By Paul Shafer | – The United States is experiencing its steepest economic slide in modern history. Tens of millions of Americans have filed new unemployment claims as the coronavirus shutters businesses and forces companies to lay off staff. People need support to help them through the crisis in a few key ways – cash […]

Education

Neoliberalism starved our Classrooms of Resources for 50 Years, and then Covid-19 Budget Cuts Hit

Tomdispatch

By Belle Chesler | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Do you hear that silence? That’s the absence of footsteps echoing through our nation’s public school hallways. It’s the silence of teaching in a virtual space populated with students on mute who lack a physical presence. It’s the crushing silence of those who are now missing, who […]

Epidemics

The Middle East was beset by Terrorism; now it Faces Coronavirus and Economic Freefall

Inequality.org

By Colin Powers| – ( Inequality.org ) – As acutely as COVID-19 and related policy responses are widening inequality in the United States, the pandemic’s biased effects threaten to be even more pronounced in many parts of the global south. This certainly appears to be the case for the non-Gulf countries of the Middle East […]

Epidemics

Our real Pandemic is burgeoning Inequality

Jim Hightower

( Otherwords.org) – The forces of greed shoved working families to the edge — all it took was a virus to push them over. By Jim Hightower | April 29, 2020 In this horrible time of economic collapse, it is truly touching to see so many corporate chieftains reaching out in solidarity with the hard-hit […]

Inequality

Billionaire Bonanza 2020: Wealth Windfalls, Tumbling Taxes, and Pandemic Profiteers

Inequality.org

By Chuck Collins, Omar Ocampo and Sophia Paslaskiis | – Billionaire Wealth and the Pandemic ( Inequality.org) – In its 34th annual list of global billionaires, published on April 7, 2020, Forbes reports a modest decline in the total number of billionaires from 2,153 in 2019 to 2,095in 2020. “The world’s richest are not immune […]

Democratic Socialism

The Rich wanted to Strangle a Tiny Gov’t in a Bathtub to avoid Taxes; Now it Turns out We need a Competent State

Jim Hightower

( Otherwords.org) – Amazingly, America has become a nation of socialists, asking in dismay: “Where’s the government?” These are not born-again Bernie Sanders activists, but people of all political stripes (including previously apolitical multitudes) who are now clamoring for big government intervention in their lives. Nothing like a spreading coronavirus pandemic to bring home the […]

Donald Trump

With Trump gross Incompetence, Bookstores moving Post-Apocalyptic Fiction into Current Events Section

John Feffer

(Tomdispatch.com) – In retrospect, it’s no surprise that, after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, dystopian fiction enjoyed a spike in popularity. However, novels like George Orwell’s 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which soared on Amazon, would prove more horror stories than roadmaps. Like so many ominous sounds from a dark basement, […]

Donald Trump

How Trump is making the Coming Great Recession even more Massive

Reese Erlich

San Francisco (48hills.org) – The current recession was triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. But after 11 years of economic boom, a capitalist bust was inevitable. And it’s being made worse by the Trump Administration’s blunders. Meanwhile socialist China, despite very real problems, is effectively combating the pandemic and starting an economic recovery. Here in the […]