Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic, America's Billionaires Thrive and Prosper
Lawrence Wittner | zcomm.org | 2020-05-08
Although most Americans currently face hard times, with unemployment surging to the levels of the Great Depression and enormous numbers of people sick or dying from the coronavirus pandemic, the nation's super-rich remain a notable exception. Financially, they are doing remarkably well. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, between March 18 and April 28, Read…
zcomm.org/zblogs/amid-the-coronavirus-pandemic-americas-billionaires-thrive-and-prosper/

Illinois nursing home workers' strike blocked by SEIU
wsws.org | 2020-05-08
The union pushed through a concessions contract that gives the corporate management of the nursing home facilities everything they wanted and leaves nursing home workers in poverty and working under life-threatening conditions.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/08/nurs-m08.html

Book Talk: 'The Women Reshaping Congress' w/ author Jennifer Steinhauer
The Commonwealth Club | indybay.org | 2020-05-08
Online via livestream…
indybay.org/newsitems/2020/05/06/18832852.php

Worst month since Great Depression: US unemployment rate soars to 14.7%, with 20.5 million jobs lost in April
rt.com | 2020-05-08
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Friday that the coronavirus shutdown has slashed a record number of jobs from nonfarm payrolls, sending the unemployment rate to record highs. | The 20.5 million jobs lost last month represents by far the largest and most sudden decline since the government began tracking the data in 1939. The last time American joblessness was that severe was during the Great Depression. | With 870,000 jobs slashed in March, a decade's worth of job gains has now been wiped out in under two months. After the US was hit by coronavirus, the unemployment rate skyrocketed from 3.
rt.com/business/488171-record-jobs-lost-us-coronavirus/

Pandemic Crash Shows Worker Co-ops Are More Resilient Than Traditional Business
Staff | truthout.org | 2020-05-08
While we have no way to know yet the full extent of the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, by all accounts it could be as bad

Russian COVID-19 cases rise, as 750,000 join unemployment rolls
wsws.org | 2020-05-08
Layoffs are spreading in Russia, as the country surpasses France and Germany in total coronavirus infections.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/05/08/ruco-m08.html

Mass Joblessness Deepens in US as Corporations Move to Implement Permanent Layoffs. 40.6 Million Unemployed
Shannon Jones | globalresearch.ca | 2020-05-08
US government figures to be released today are expected to show mass unemployment in April unlike anything seen since the Great Depression. In numbers released Wednesday, ADP Research said that US payrolls in April fell by an astounding 20,236,000, a …
globalresearch.ca/mass-joblessness-us-corporations-implement-permanent-layoffs/5712240

A Grim New Normal Ahead? Worse than Orwell's 1984. Unprecedented Global Poverty and Human Misery
Stephen Lendman | globalresearch.ca | 2020-05-07
Will historians one day look back at unfolding events related to today's public health crisis and economic collapse as a post-coronavirus new normal that's grimly different from what preceded it? | Do ongoing events mark the beginning of an unacceptable dystopian …
globalresearch.ca/grim-new-normal/5712116

German Government Bails Out Owners of German Corporations
Andrey Areshev | strategic-culture.org | 2020-05-07
Eric ZUESSE | Just as the corrupt U.S. Government is bailing out owners of U.S. corporations while the American public experiences a recession that is heading into a depression, the corrupt German Government likewise is bailing out investors. It's not illegal for the Government to do that

Why It's Wrong (and Racist) to Blame Covid-19 on Chinese 'Wet Markets'
Joshua Cho | fair.org | 2020-05-07
The New York Times ( 1/25/20) says the eating of unusual animals like turtles and snakes is "driven as much by the desire to flaunt wealth as by a mix of superstition and belief about the health benefits of wildlife." Whereas people eat frog legs at Coney Island because, well, they like the way they taste. | The stigmatization of Asian people and their culture as "inferior" or "exotic" isn't a ne…
fair.org/home/why-its-wrong-and-racist-to-blame-covid-19-on-chinese-wet-markets/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-its-wrong-and-racist-to-blame-covid-19-on-chinese-wet-markets

Trump economy faces long-term disaster as jobs data looms
graham | truepublica.org.uk | 2020-05-07
The staggering economic pain, perhaps the worst since the 1930s, of the American economy in the time of coronavirus will be graphically underscored in two new rounds of unemployment data that are due on Thursday and Friday. The figures will show Americans who have and will lose their livelihoods as common victims of the most cruel public health crisis …
truepublica.org.uk/newsbits/trump-economy-faces-long-term-disaster-as-jobs-data-looms/

Bank of England: Unemployment to double
graham | truepublica.org.uk | 2020-05-07
The Bank of England has warned the British economy could shrink by 14% this year and unemployment more than double by next spring as the coronavirus causes the deepest recession in modern history. Leaving interest rates on hold at a record low of 0.1% as the economic crisis unfolds, the central bank said economic activity across …
truepublica.org.uk/newsbits/bank-of-england-unemployment-to-double/

Nearly One in Five Workers Applied for State Unemployment Insurance Benefits in the Last Seven Weeks
Heidi Shierholz | commondreams.org | 2020-05-07
The Congressional Budget Office projects that without additional relief, the unemployment rate will average 16% in the third quarter of this year and 10.1% for the entire calendar year of 2021. (Photo: Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/closed_1_0_1.jpg …
commondreams.org/views/2020/05/07/nearly-one-five-workers-applied-state-unemployment-insurance-benefits-last-seven?cd-origin=rss

Senior UN official calls for universal basic income to tackle growing inequality
news.un.org | 2020-05-06
The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a health crisis, but it is also proving to be an economic disaster for huge numbers of people worldwide. A senior UN official with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) is calling for countries to provide citizens with a universal basic income, to help the millions who have lost their jobs, because of measures to curb the virus, combined with increasing levels of inequality.
news.un.org/feed/view/en/story/2020/05/1063312

CPUSA launches Spring Fund Appeal: "Building for a better world"
Lawrence Albright | peoplesworld.org | 2020-05-06
NEW YORK–"Millions are standing up for universal health care and basic safety on the job. Millions are demanding necessities like food, housing, and unemployment insurance, and defending democracy," said Communist Party USA co-chair Rossana Cambron at the launch of the oganization's Spring Fund Appeal on May Day. "The CPUSA is a vital part of this …
peoplesworld.org/article/cpusa-launches-spring-fund-appeal-building-for-a-better-world/

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

Economist Thomas Piketty: Coronavirus Pandemic Has Exposed the "Violence of Social Inequality"
Staff | democracynow.org | 2020-04-30
As nearly 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment in just six weeks and millions worldwide face hunger and poverty, we look at the global economic catastrophe triggered by the pandemic and its impact on the most vulnerable. As the World Food Programme warns of a massive spike in global hunger and more than 100 million people in cities worldwide could fall into poverty, can this crisis be a catalyst for change? We ask French economist Thomas Piketty. His 2014 internationally best-selling book, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," looked at economic inequality and the necessity of wealth taxes. His new b…
www.democracynow.org/2020/4/30/thomas_piketty

Headlines for April 30, 2020
Staff | democracynow.org | 2020-04-30
Jared Kushner Hails "Great Success Story" as U.S. Deaths Top 60,000, Dozens of Decomposing Bodies Found in Trucks Outside Brooklyn Funeral Home, President Trump Claims Coronavirus Will Be "Eradicated" from U.S. | , FDA to Approve Emergency Use of Remdesivir After the Drug Shows Promise Treating COVID-19, More Than 30 Million U.S. Workers File Unemployment Claims in Just Six Weeks, International Labour Organization Warns Pandemic Threatens Livelihoods of 1.6 Billion, South Korea Reports No New Domestic Coronavirus Cases , U.K. Now Has Europe's Second-Highest COVID-19 Death Toll | , Femicides and Domestic Violence…
www.democracynow.org/2020/4/30/headlines

U.S. Organizations React to Global Military Spending Report
Jeff Jurgens | peaceaction.org | 2020-04-30
Joint Statement: U.S. organizations react to global military spending report April 27, 2020 Our diverse group of 39 think-tanks, non-profits, faith-based organizations, and advocacy groups based in the United States find the exorbitant amount of money spent on militaries worldwide to be an irresponsible and harmful use of global wealth. The Global Military Expenditures Report …
peaceaction.org/2020/04/30/u-s-organizations-react-to-global-military-spending-report/

Five Years After Freddie Gray's Death: The Resistance Makes Change, The Government Doesn't
Staff | therealnews.com | 2020-04-30
The people at the core of the resistance after Freddie Gray's death are changing lives and building community five years later, while the government has done little to address poverty and isolation in the poorest Black communities of…
therealnews.com/stories/five-years-after-freddie-grays-death-the-resistance-makes-change-the-government-doesnt

How Workers Can Win in the Age of COVID-19
Sarah Jaffe | progressive.org | 2020-04-30
With thirty million people filing for unemployment, a new project helps organizers fight for the common good.
progressive.org/dispatches/how-workers-can-win-jaffe-200430/

How We Should Spell Relief
Adam Briones | progressive.org | 2020-04-27
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States was already suffering from a pandemic of inequality.
progressive.org/op-eds/how-we-should-spell-relief-briones-200427/

[Perspectives] The worst is not, so long as we can say "this is the worst"
Jonathan Bate | thelancet.com | 2020-04-14
"There have been as many plagues as wars in history", the doctor observes, "yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise". Even after a few scattered deaths, "the danger still remained fantastically unreal." "It's impossible it should be the plague, everyone knows it has vanished from the West", says one character early in the novel, as first the rats and then the people begin to die. "Yes, everyone knew that", replies the doctor, "except the dead". The infection comes to a town that is obsessed with business, a place where the sole object seems to be the pursuit of wealth.
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30811-4/fulltext?rss=yes

Direct Relief Demanded for Hard-Hit US Families as Depression-Level Unemployment Tops 33 Million
Julia Conley, staff writer | commondreams.org | 2020-05-07
Economists and progressive lawmakers on Thursday pointed to new unemployment numbers as the latest evidence that Congress must pass bold legislation to give direct financial assistance to Americans. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gettyimages-1219998514_1.jpg …
commondreams.org/news/2020/05/07/direct-relief-demanded-hard-hit-us-families-depression-level-unemployment-tops-33?cd-origin=rss