America's Super-Rich See Their Wealth Rise by $282 Billion in Three Weeks of Pandemic
Alan MacLeod | globalresearch.ca | 2020-05-04
A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies found that, while tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic, America's ultra-wealthy elite have seen their net worth surge by $282 billion in just 23 …
globalresearch.ca/america-super-rich-wealth-rise-282-billion-three-weeks-pandemic/5711665
The COVID-19 Crisis Profoundly Exposes African Americans to the Scourge of Poverty and Racism
Azhar Azam | globalresearch.ca | 2020-05-04
They live below the poverty level. They are prison inmates in large numbers. They are most likely to be killed by the police, a longstanding grievance that originated the Black Lives Matter (BTM) movement to protest against police killing and | …
globalresearch.ca/covid-19-profoundly-exposes-african-americans-racism/5711687
ILO: Nearly half of all world's workers may lose their jobs due to COVID-19 pandemic
Eds. | mronline.org | 2020-05-04
In the absence of strong support measures by governments across the world, the estimated loss of mostly informal jobs would result in rising poverty, starvation and inequality, an ILO report says.
mronline.org/2020/05/04/ilo-nearly-half-of-all-worlds-workers-may-lose-their-jobs-due-to-covid-19-pandemic/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ilo-nearly-half-of-all-worlds-workers-may-lose-their-jobs-due-to-covid-19-pandemic
Tourism collapse threatens Pacific islands with deepening poverty
wsws.org | 2020-05-04
In preparation for social unrest as their economies collapse, many Pacific island governments are using the COVID-19 pandemic to impose authoritarian measures.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/04/paci-m04.html
Furloughed workers face hunger in New Jersey, America's second-wealthiest state
wsws.org | 2020-05-04
The shuttering of workplaces in New Jersey, an epicenter of the pandemic, has forced workers with little savings to join mile-long lines for food assistance.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/04/newj-m04.html
The Half of It: Director Alice Wu and Star Leah Lewis talk w/ Michelle Meow
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-05-04
Online via livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/02/18832779.php
Oakland Arts and Culture in the Era of COVID-19 (livestream talk)
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-05-04
Online via livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/02/18832782.php
'Brain-dead on and off the pitch': Fans SLATE Liverpool's Lovren over coronavirus claims about Bill Gates, David Icke and vaccines
rt.com | 2020-05-04
Fans have reacted with shock, derision and support on social media after Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren lashed out at a post by Bill Gates in support of health workers and endorsed David Icke's controversial views on COVID-19. | Long-serving center-back Lovren backed claims that the pandemic has been manufactured as a means of forcing the world to accept a vaccine, sounding a warning in response to a post by billionaire Gates, who theorists believe is behind a dastardly population control plan. | Gates, who has pledged some of his vast wealth towards the scientific search for a vaccine and medical aid efforts…
rt.com/sport/487727-dejan-lovren-coronavirus-conspiracy/
College Coach Matt Lynch on His Public Coming-Out Story
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-05-04
Online via livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/02/18832783.php
Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-05-04
Online via Livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/04/18832820.php
Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy: Fighting Loneliness During COVID-19 and Beyond
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-05-04
Online via livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/04/18832821.php
Will the pandemic hasten the demise of capitalism?
Albert Bender | peoplesworld.org | 2020-05-04
The U.S. economy is collapsing by leaps and bounds. By the latest figures, over 30 million workers have applied for unemployment benefits in the past six weeks. Many economists are predicting a depression that will far surpass the Great Depression of the 1930s. The lines of cars at food banks stretching for miles are surreal enough …
peoplesworld.org/article/will-the-pandemic-hasten-the-demise-of-capitalism/
30 million jobs lost so far, but many workers can't access unemployment benefits
Mark Gruenberg | peoplesworld.org | 2020-05-04
WASHINGTON–Another 3.84 million people filed for jobless benefits nationwide in the prior week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on April 30. That shoots the actual number of jobless due to closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic to over 30 million. The Economic Policy Institute warns that 30 million total may actually be an undercount. …
peoplesworld.org/article/30-million-jobs-lost-so-far-but-many-workers-cant-access-unemployment-benefits/
Towards A New World Order? The Global Debt Crisis and the Privatization of the State
Prof Michel Chossudovsky | globalresearch.ca | 2020-05-03
This is the true picture of what is happening. Poverty is Worldwide. While famines are erupting in Third World countries, closer to home, in the richest country on earth, "millions of desperate Americans wait in long crowded lines for handouts"
globalresearch.ca/towards-a-new-world-order-the-global-debt-crisis-and-the-privatization-of-the-state/5709755
True Resilience Involves Pushing Forward From COVID-19, Not Just Bouncing Back
Russell Weaver | commondreams.org | 2020-05-03
Before the coronavirus hit, the U.S. was already experiencing some of the highest levels of inequality and largest racial wealth gaps in recent memory. Is that what we should strike to "bounce back" to? (Photo: jerry dohnal/flickr/cc) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/beyond-bouncing-back.jpg …
commondreams.org/views/2020/05/03/true-resilience-involves-pushing-forward-covid-19-not-just-bouncing-back?cd-origin=rss
The Real Disease Is Inequality
Jim Hightower | zcomm.org | 2020-05-03
The forces of greed shoved working families to the edge
Who Really Controls the World? Deadly Weapons, Concentration of Wealth, Corporate Media
Prof. Dr. Mujahid Kamran | globalresearch.ca | 2020-05-03
(Article originally published in April 2015) | Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. …
globalresearch.ca/who-really-controls-the-world/5445239
Oakland Arts and Culture in the Era of COVID-19 (livestream talk)
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-05-03
Online via livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/02/18832782.php
The Half of It: Director Alice Wu and Star Leah Lewis talk w/ Michelle Meow
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-05-03
Online via livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/02/18832779.php
College Coach Matt Lynch on His Public Coming-Out Story
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-05-03
Online via livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/02/18832783.php
Over 70 Percent of Jobless Americans Didn't Receive March Unemployment Benefits
Staff | truthout.org | 2020-05-03
The vast majority of Americans who lost their jobs did not receive unemployment benefits in March, despite federal and state efforts to ramp up aid to jobless Americans after large swaths of the economy shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus. | Millions of Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits in March but 71% of them did not receive their benefits that month, delaying a…
truthout.org/articles/over-70-percent-of-jobless-americans-didnt-receive-march-unemployment-benefits/
The War of Two Middle Classes
Joel Kotkin | anti-empire.com | 2020-05-02
Politicians across the Western world like to speak fondly of the "middle class" as if it is one large constituency with common interests and aspirations. But, as Karl Marx observed, the middle class has always been divided by sources of wealth and worldview. Today, it is split into two distinct, and often opposing, middle classes. First there is the yeomanry or the traditional middle class, which consists of small business owners, minor landowners, craftspeople, and artisans, or what we would define historically as the bourgeoisie, or the old French Third Estate, deeply embedded in the private economy. The oth…
anti-empire.com/the-war-of-two-middle-classes/
[Perspectives] Society and the slow burn of inequality
Michael Marmot | thelancet.com | 2020-05-02
On June 14, 2017, Grenfell Tower, a high-rise housing block in the Royal London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, UK, went up in flames. 72 people died, among the poorest and most marginalised in society. A dramatic conflagration such as this could teach us two kinds of lessons, if we were but open to receiving them. This event exposed underlying problems in society and it showed us that we have to do things differently. In the case of Grenfell, the underlying societal problem was deep-seated and enduring social inequalities and resultant health inequalities.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30940-5/fulltext?rss=yes
Coronavirus and Universal Basic Income: Inoculating against the virus of insecurity
Barb Jacobson | thecanary.co | 2020-05-02
The coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis has seen a huge upswing in both political and grassroots support for Universal Basic Income (UBI). However, the idea that everyone should get a regular cash payment from the state, without means test or work requirement, bubbled up into prominence a few years before this crisis. Many factors prompted this interest: the rise of zero-hours and insecure work contracts; the misery of increased benefit conditionality; cuts to unemployment and disability benefits. Added to this are worries about automation and who wi…
thecanary.co/feature/2020/05/02/coronavirus-and-universal-basic-income-inoculating-against-the-virus-of-insecurity/
Argentine unions and employers agree to wage cuts pushing millions into poverty
wsws.org | 2020-05-02
More than a million workers will face hunger and poverty while businesses get massive subsidies.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/02/arge-m02.html
COVID-19 impact could be 'disastrously high' in poverty-stricken Malawi
news.un.org | 2020-05-02
In Malawi, one of the world's poorest countries, with a fragile health system, the UN is bracing for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic which, it is feared, could be severe.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2020/05/1063062
Dorothea Lange: Words and Pictures: An exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
wsws.org | 2020-05-02
Lange's turn to documentary photography was spurred by the Great Depression as she sought to address economic inequality and social injustice through activism and the lens of her camera.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/02/lang-m02.html
5 Lessons From the Coronavirus About Inequality in America
Jonathan J. B. Mijs | commondreams.org | 2020-05-02
A volunteer with Forgotten Harvest loads food into a vehicle at a mobile pantry April 14, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. The organization distributes food throughout the metro area, which has seen an uptick in demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/food-bank.jpg …
commondreams.org/views/2020/05/02/5-lessons-coronavirus-about-inequality-america?cd-origin=rss
1.6 Billion Workers Face Potential Unemployment Globally
RT | dissidentvoice.org | 2020-05-02
dissidentvoice.org/2020/05/1-6-billion-workers-face-potential-unemployment-globally/
Cutbacks on the horizon: Sunshine State abandons unemployed workers
Fight Back | fightbacknews.org | 2020-05-02
Miami, FL – More than 2 million Floridians have now applied for unemployment benefits. Only a fraction of the applications have even been processed and even fewer workers have received payments. Florida's unemployment system was already terrible before the crisis and it has completely collapsed under pressure from COVID-19. | Florida's online application process for unemployment was designed to fail. It was created by right-wing former Governor Rick Scott with big business in mind. Its goals were to be as confusing as possible for any worker trying to submit an application and to reject as many applications as po…
fightbacknews.org/2020/5/2/cutbacks-horizon-sunshine-state-abandons-unemployed-workers
Cutbacks on the horizon: Sunshine State abandons unemployed workers
Fight Back | fightbacknews.org | 2020-05-02
Miami, FL – More than 2 million Floridians have now applied for unemployment benefits. Only a fraction of the applications have even been processed and even fewer workers have received payments. Florida's unemployment system was already terrible before the crisis and it has completely collapsed under pressure from COVID-19. | Florida's online application process for unemployment was designed to fail. It was created by right-wing former Governor Rick Scott with big business in mind. Its goals were to be as confusing as possible for any worker trying to submit an application and to reject as many applications as po…
www.fightbacknews.org/2020/5/2/cutbacks-horizon-sunshine-state-abandons-unemployed-workers
The 5th Coronavirus Relief Package We Need
Howie Hawkins | dissidentvoice.org | 2020-05-02
The coronavirus depression is fast becoming as deep as the Great Depression. The federal government's response has been too little, too late. While sickness and death spread, while unemployment and small business failures soar, while health care and essential workers lack personal protective equipment (PPE), Congress is in recess until May 4. The childlike dummy, …
dissidentvoice.org/2020/05/the-5th-coronavirus-relief-package-we-need/
Trump admin sits on $43 billion intended for clean energy loans while unemployment soars
Jordan Davidson | nationofchange.org | 2020-05-02
"These utility-led programs could drive significant job and economic growth statewide as we step out of our current pause."
nationofchange.org/2020/05/02/trump-admin-sits-on-43-billion-intended-for-clean-energy-loans-while-unemployment-soars/
As Amazon announces sales surge, its staff protest against poor safety conditions on International Workers' Day
Peadar O'Cearnaigh | thecanary.co | 2020-05-01
The first quarter of 2020 saw a surge in Amazon sales as a result of the coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown. Sales are also expected to increase again in the second three months of the year. | According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index daily ranking on 1 May, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the world's richest man. The pandemic has also resulted in his personal wealth rising by £19bn. And the increase in online shopping has boosted the company's…
thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2020/05/01/as-amazon-announces-sales-surge-its-staff-protest-against-poor-safety-conditions-on-international-workers-day/
ILO: Nearly half of all world's workers may lose their jobs due to COVID-19 pandemic
Abdul Rahman | peoplesdispatch.org | 2020-05-01
In the absence of strong support measures by governments across the world, the estimated loss of mostly informal jobs would result in rising poverty, starvation and inequality, an ILO report says…
peoplesdispatch.org/2020/05/01/ilo-nearly-half-of-all-worlds-workers-may-lose-their-jobs-due-to-covid-19-pandemic/
Corporate Looting as 'Rescue Plan,' Robber Barons as 'Saviors'
Joshua Cho | fair.org | 2020-05-01
Framing a massive corporate bailout as a "rescue package" (NPR, 3/27/20) was a PR coup. | For a perfect illustration of how corporate media function as ruling class propaganda, watch how they spin a titanic upward redistribution of wealth as a "rescue plan" for the US economy, and paint a robber baron like US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin as…
fair.org/home/corporate-looting-as-rescue-plan-robber-barons-as-saviors/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=corporate-looting-as-rescue-plan-robber-barons-as-saviors
Recent Unemployment Insurance claims top 30 million
Fight Back | fightbacknews.org | 2020-05-01
San José, CA – On Thursday, April 30, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that more than 3.8 million new claims for unemployment insurance or UI were filed in the previous week ending April 25. This means that over the last six weeks more than 30 million claims have been filed. This means that the actual unemployment rate is about 25%, a level similar to the worst of the Great Depression of the 1930s. | The number of people who are getting Unemployment Insurance benefits as of a week earlier, or April 18, reached 18 million, the highest ever. Since 27 million people had applied for benefits as of that time, mor…
www.fightbacknews.org/2020/5/1/recent-unemployment-insurance-claims-top-30-million
US: Workers Must Risk Infection or Lose Unemployment Payments
telesurenglish.net | 2020-05-01
Some, among the millions of American workers laid off because of the COVID-19, are beginning to face a tough choice
Recent Unemployment Insurance claims top 30 million
Fight Back | fightbacknews.org | 2020-05-01
San José, CA – On Thursday, April 30, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that more than 3.8 million new claims for unemployment insurance or UI were filed in the previous week ending April 25. This means that over the last six weeks more than 30 million claims have been filed. This means that the actual unemployment rate is about 25%, a level similar to the worst of the Great Depression of the 1930s. | The number of people who are getting Unemployment Insurance benefits as of a week earlier, or April 18, reached 18 million, the highest ever. Since 27 million people had applied for benefits as of that time, mor…
fightbacknews.org/2020/5/1/recent-unemployment-insurance-claims-top-30-million
Coronavirus and the Increase in Domestic Violence
David Rosen | counterpunch.org | 2020-05-01
Americans are paying dearly as they suffer through the coronavirus epidemic. The costs of inadequate testing, poor medical care and even death in isolation are only compounded by the nation's staggering economy, mounting unemployment rate and uncertainty of recovery. Making matters worse, there has been an increase in domestic violence.
counterpunch.org/2020/05/01/coronavirus-and-the-increase-in-domestic-violence/
US: FEMA Ordered 100,000 Body Bags
telesurenglish.net | 2020-05-01
The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) requested 100,000 more body bags amidst the COVID-19 outbreak. The agency ordered a similar amount in early April. | RELATED: | US: Workers Must Risk Infection or Lose Unemployment Payments | E.M. Oil Transport Inc. of Montebello, California, received the new body bags batch order. The company advertises construction vehicles, building materials, and electronics on its website. According to local news media, the delivery would a…
telesurenglish.net/news/us-fema-ordered-100-000-body-bags–20200501-0007.html
As Millions Stripped of Health Coverage Amid Covid-19, House Dems Unveil Bill for Emergency Expansion of Medicare and Medicaid
Jessica Corbett, staff writer | commondreams.org | 2020-05-01
Just a day after the U.S. Labor Department announced that more than 30 million people have applied for unemployment benefits since mid-March, over 30 House Democrats came together to introduce legislation that would guarantee healthcare coverage to all Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gettyimages-12108885731.jpg …
commondreams.org/news/2020/05/01/millions-stripped-health-coverage-amid-covid-19-house-dems-unveil-bill-emergency?cd-origin=rss
