2019-12-05: News Headlines

Bob Lord (2019-12-05). The U-Turn That Made America Staggeringly Unequal. counterpunch.org Wealth in America has concentrated — and dramatically so — over the past four decades. Since 1980, note wealth researchers Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the top 0.1 percent share of the nation's total wealth has more than doubled, from under 10 percent in 1980 to over 20 percent today. In a nation of over More

Prof. John McMurtry (2019-12-05). Global Poverty: How the Rich Eat the Poor and the World. globalresearch.ca 62 individuals — 388 in 2010 — now own more wealth than 50% of the world's population. More shockingly, this share of wealth by half of the world's people has collapsed by over 40% in the last five years.

Staff (2019-12-05). Sweden Offers Free Higher Ed, Universal Health Care, Daycare — Why Can't the US? truthout.org Medicare for All and tuition-free universities have been at the core of the 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns, creating a stark division between progressive candidates and their centrist counterparts. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have proposed to make Medicare for All and public universities cost-free by taxing massive corporations and the super wealthy, and earlier this year, Sanders introduced legislation that would cancel student loan debt. His plan would be paid for with a…

Staff (2019-12-05). Wealthy Nations Are Condemning Hundreds of Millions to Suffer. truthdig.com Only by sharing technologies and giving trillions to the U.N. can the West protect developing countries from the effects of climate change.

WSWS (2019-12-05). French public sector strike: Build independent committees of action for political struggle against Macron. wsws.org The December 5 strike is part of a vast international resurgence of class struggle in opposition to social inequality and military-police repression.

United Nations (2019-12-05). Partnerships key to taking landlocked countries out of poverty: UN Chief. news.un.org The challenges faced by landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), some of the poorest in the world, can be overcome through more effective partnerships, UN Secretary-General António Guterres declared on Thursday, at a conference held at UN Headquarters in New York.

Staff (2019-12-05). Sweden Provides Free Higher Education, Universal Healthcare, Free Daycare — Why Can't the U.S.? democracynow.org Medicare for All and tuition-free universities have been at the core of the 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns, creating a stark division between progressive candidates and their centrist counterparts. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have proposed to make Medicare for All and public universities cost-free by taxing massive corporations and the super wealthy, and earlier this year, Sanders introduced legislation that would cancel student loan debt. His plan would be paid for with a new tax on Wall Street, he says. It would also make public universities and community colleges free — a key pil…

The Canary (2019-12-05). Labour reveals plan to 'poverty proof' schools as headteachers say budgets are at 'breaking point'. thecanary.co Free healthy breakfasts would be served to all primary school children under a Labour proposal to "poverty proof" England's schools and reduce the number going hungry. | Labour will detail plans to improve education, including by recruiting 20,000 more teachers, capping primary class sizes at 30 and investing £7bn repairing school buildings. | The free breakfast programme would also be piloted in secondary schools in an attempt to boost children's education chances, if Jeremy Corbyn's party wins the 12 December election. | All secondary school children whose families receive Universal Credit would get free…

Vijay Prashad (2019-12-04). Wealthy Countries' Approach to Climate Change Condemns Hundreds of Millions of People to Suffer. counterpunch.org In Madrid, Spain, the 2019 UN Climate Change Conference—known as COP25—began on December 2. Representatives of the world's countries gathered to discuss what is decidedly a serious problem for the planet; no one, except dangerous political forces in the neofascist right, denies the reality of climate change. More

Howard Lisnoff (2019-12-04). Elizabeth Warren: Savior of a Fallen System? counterpunch.org Elizabeth Warren is a neoliberal in the service of the oligarchs and plutocrats: the few and the wealthy! She stands in a long line of neoliberals who join the contemporary liberal populist parade. Long gone are the New Deal and Great Society days when at least a few social programs were enacted for some. Of More

Dean Baker (2019-12-04). NAFTA was About Redistributing Wealth Upwards. counterpunch.org The Washington Post gave readers the official story about NAFTA, diverging seriously from reality, in a piece on the status of negotiations on the new NAFTA. The piece tells readers: "NAFTA was meant to expand trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico by removing tariffs and other barriers on products as they were shipped More

United Nations (2019-12-04). From landlocked to land-linked: how the UN is helping some of the world's poorest countries. news.un.org How can the international community turn some of the world's poorest, landlocked countries, into thriving, land-linked nations? On Thursday, at UN Headquarters, Member States will renew commitments they have made, to eradicate poverty in the 32 countries designated as Landlocked Developing Countries, or LLDCs.

Eds. (2019-12-03). Social crises, crises of Democracy, neoliberalism in crisis. mronline.org The current global social tensions have in common the rejection of inequality and the loss of democratic control. The engine driving these challenges may well be the fading relevance of neoliberalism, which is aggravating its own crisis and opening the door to confrontation. | Source

Staff (2019-12-02). Tariq Ali on U.K. Elections, Corbyn's "Radical Social-Democratic Program" & Rise of Extreme Right. democracynow.org The British general election is just 10 days away and will have huge implications for the future of the country as well as Brexit. When voters cast their ballots later this month, they will choose between two dramatically different candidates: right-wing Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson and left-wing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn recently unveiled an ambitious election manifesto promising to transform the country and resuscitate its public sector. The plan proposed a $100-billion tax increase on the wealthy to fund investment in infrastructure as well as increased spending on education and heal…

splcenter (2019-11-12). SPLC Response to Union Petition. splcenter.org On November 7, 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center received a notice from the National Labor Relations Board that the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild seeks to represent certain employees through the formation of a union.

CounterSpin (2019-09-27). Shailly Gupta Barnes, Frances Fox Piven on Defining and Ending Poverty. fair.org Media…