2020-06-21: News Headlines

Stephen Lendman (2020-06-20). America's Dysfunctional Economy. Massive Unemployment. Economic Collapse. globalresearch.ca The US ruling class bears full responsibility for the economy's unprecedented dysfunctional state. What was unimaginable long ago is reality today, redefining what house of cards economic conditions are all about. | It's an unsustainable situation certain to implode ahead with …

Guo Yingzhe (2020-06-20). China's Economic Rebound Continues, but Slower Than Expected. Might Hit 2% Growth for 2020. anti-empire.com China's economy continued its gradual recovery from the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic in May, as major indicators released Monday showed investment, consumption and industrial output all improved from the previous month. But the recovery wasn't as fast as economists expected, as the surveyed unemployment rate in big cities hit a record high. | More economic activity resumed last month as China brought its domestic outbreak under control. The economy also got a boost from government policies that expanded infrastructure investment and measures that offered relief to hard-hit businesses. The central governmen…

_____ (2020-06-20). US Racism's $13 Trillion Legacy Is Just The Start. popularresistance.org New York – Around the time the United States formally abolished slavery in 1865, African Americans owned 0.5% of the United States' wealth. Today they own under 3%, even though around 13% of the population is defined by the U.S. census as "black or African American." This isn't an accident of history — it's a result of government policies and institutional bias. The interest keeps compounding. | The value of income lost during slavery is staggering. The U.S. practice lasted for nearly 250 years — almost equivalent to the time from the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 until today. Uni…

Norbert Trenkle (2020-06-20). Climate crisis and social transformation in the age of Corona. indybay.org Material wealth in the form of useful things and utilities is only a means subordinated to the objective of capital accumulation and is sacrificed when that objective can no longer be achieved… Without the state, capitalist society would fly apart immediately. The state, however, is an essential precondition for abstract wealth production and dependent on it.

Peoples Dispatch (2020-06-19). Communist Party of India (Marxist) stages protest against government's anti-people policies. peoplesdispatch.org The CPI(M) has demanded cash and grain transfers, 200 days of work under the rural employment scheme, an unemployment allowance and an end to the privatization of state enterprises…

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2020-06-19). Poor People's Campaign to Host Weekend Digital Gathering to 'Challenge Poverty and Revive Democracy'. commondreams.org Low-income people and economic justice advocates from across the United States will unite on Saturday and Sunday "to challenge poverty and revive democracy amidst recession, pandemic, and protests" with a historic digital assembly and march sponsored by the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/ppc_0.jpg

Pete Dolack (2020-06-19). The Political Economy of Covid-19. counterpunch.org Governments around the world are attempting to prop up a failing capitalist system by — surprise! — throwing money at wealthy individuals and corporations, especially in the financial industry. In other words, in this time of unprecedented crisis and economic difficulty, it's business as usual. We were here not much more than a decade ago,

W. T. Whitney Jr. (2020-06-19). Economic collapse and unemployment councils — then and now. peoplesworld.org Hunger, homelessness, and evictions were features of the Great Depression in the United States. Jobs disappeared and working conditions deteriorated. Some "250,000 teenagers were on the road." And how many others? By 1933, one-third of farm families had lost their farms. Unemployment that year was 25%. The lives of working people were devastated. The federal …

WSWS (2020-06-19). US jobless disaster intensifies as 1.5 million filed for unemployment last week. wsws.org Mass joblessness in the US is unlike anything seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Fight Back (2020-06-19). July 31 cutoff looms for unemployed. fightbacknews.org San José, CA – In six weeks, tens of millions of unemployed people face the end of the additional $600 a week in unemployment insurance benefits. This additional benefit that helps low income workers the most is set to expire due to its being opposed by the Republican-controlled Senate. These same workers were hardest hit by the pandemic recession, and many face the prospect of their jobs not coming back. This is just another example of how the economic relief has helped large corporations, which can aided by the Federal Reserve, while low-income workers are subject to punishment by republicans who see the aid as…

Stephen Lendman (2020-06-18). The Plot to Make Trump a One-Term President? Why Do They Want him Out? Will a Biden Presidency Make a Positive Difference? globalresearch.ca Why would perhaps a majority of the US ruling class want Trump defeated in November? | Even though he's far from a prototypical Western leader — a businessman/reality TV personality turned politician — he aided and abetted the greatest wealth transfer …

Staff (2020-06-18). Why You Should Give a F*ck | Ep. 2 | Unemployment. therealnews.com We take a look at what it means to be unemployed, while diving deeper into the impact unemployment can have on daily life.

teleSUR (2020-06-18). Venezuela Unveils Plot to Plunder Its Nation's Oil Wealth. telesurenglish.net Venezuela's Vice President Delcy Rodriguez Thursday showed strong evidence against opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido and Jose Ignacio Hernandez, both of whom sought to plunder Venezuela's oil wealth abroad with U.S. government's complicity. | RELATED: | "The facade that lawmaker Juan Guaido and false prosecutor Jose Ignacio Hernandez have tried to present as a political project is, in reality, a criminal corporati…

WSWS (2020-06-18). COVID-19 killing the working class in Britain at more than twice the rate of the wealthiest. wsws.org The pandemic is exacerbating the effects of already growing socioeconomic and urban inequalities.

Heidi Shierholz (2020-06-18). Over Three Months Into Pandemic and Job Losses Remain at Historic Levels. commondreams.org "Things are slowly improving, but remain at historic levels," writes Shierholz. (Photo: Russ Allison Loar / flickr / cc) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/unemployment_5.jpg

teleSUR (2020-06-18). US Job Losses Remain High After 3 Months of Pandemic. telesurenglish.net After three months of the COVID-19 pandemic, initial unemployment claims are more than twice the worst week of the Great Recession, when 2.2 million workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, Common Dreams reported Thursday. | RELATED: | Of the 2.2 million who applied for unemployment benefits last week, 1.4 million applied for regular state unemployment insurance (U.I.) on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis, and 0.8 milli…

_____ (2020-06-18). What Would The Black Panthers Think Of Black Lives Matter? popularresistance.org The U.S. ruling class, whose capitalist system is the historical midwife of modern racism, is not threatened by the racialist and black-capitalist BLM. But just to make sure that black anger is kept within safe political boundaries, a critical, cash-rich arm of concentrated wealth agreed last year to lavishly fund the group and a significant number of black middle class-led policy and advocacy groups coming in under its rubric. | In August 2016, when I first heard that BLM had scored $100 million from the Ford Foundation and other elite philanthro-capitalists (including the Hill-Snowden Foundation, the NoVo Found…

_____ (2020-06-18). US Trails World In Coronavirus Response And Almost Everything Else. popularresistance.org Data from around the world on how nations are handling Coronavirus makes clear that, as in most things (this claim is documented below), the United States is exceptionally awful. Among wealthy countries, only Sweden, which has chosen to intentionally allow the disease to spread, has done worse. A handful of countries in Latin America and the Middle East are doing worse than the United States, though some are doing better. As in many world rankings, as documented below, the United States looks fair to middling as a third-world country, but off-the-charts terrible as a wealthy country — much less as a country…

yenisafak (2020-06-18). Merkel urges EU compromise on COVID-19 recovery package. yenisafak.com German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on EU member states to reach a quick compromise on the COVID-19 economic recovery package, and warned that the bloc is facing the biggest challenge since its foundation.Addressing lawmakers in parliament on Thursday, a day before a key summit of European leaders via videoconference, Merkel said the coronavirus crisis has deepened inequality within the EU, indicating the bloc was vulnerable."Cohesion and solidarity in Europe have never been as important as they are now," she stressed, adding that no country can withstand this crisis alone.Merkel urged EU members, which ex…

yenisafak (2020-06-18). NGO sounds alarm on use of wild plants to cure COVID-19. yenisafak.com Wild plant species are under pressure due to its usage to treat COVID-19 and make money, according to the report published by the international wildlife watchdog TRAFFIC on Thursday."Wild plant species used in herbal treatments of COVID-19 are set to come under heightened harvesting pressure, both as a result of increased demand and because of more people turning to wild harvesting as an alternative source of income during times of high unemployment and economic crisis," TRAFFIC said.The report asserted that herbal products containing wild plant ingredients are used to prevent and treat COVID-19 in South America,…

Julia Conley, staff writer (2020-06-18). With 'Systemic Violations' of Worker Rights, US Comes in Dead Last in Labor Rankings of Wealthy Nations. commondreams.org The International Trade Union Confederation's world map showing its rankings of the best and worst countries for working people includes a noticeable difference between the U.S. and other wealthy countries. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/image_72_0_0.jpg

Graham Peebles (2020-06-17). Global Issues Require United Action and a Reinvigorated UN. dissidentvoice.org Whatever corner of the world one happens to live in, the most pressing issues of the day affect everyone. Pandemics/epidemics and the environmental emergency; war and terrorism; poverty and food insecurity; overpopulation and the displacement of persons. Such crises cannot be limited by borders or controlled by nation states; no government or corporate power can …

Chuck Collins (2020-06-17). Move Charity Dollars to the Front Lines. counterpunch.org Congress should pass a three-year "Emergency Charity Stimulus" to move $200 billion to frontline working nonprofit groups by increasing payout requirements for private foundations and donor-advised funds. These billions have already been paid for by tax breaks taken by wealthy donors. This is $200 billion that won't add a penny to what taxpayers will pay.

yenisafak (2020-06-17). 'Turkish social aid program reached over 6M households'. yenisafak.com The Turkish state helped millions of families through social assistance programs and offered financial support worth billions of dollars during the COVID-19 outbreak, a top government official said on Wednesday.The government launched the Social Protection Shield program to cater to citizens' needs during the pandemic, Zehra Zumrut Selcuk, Turkey's family, labor and social services minister, told Anadolu Agency's Editor's Desk.She said the program includes services such as short-time work allowance, unemployment benefits, cash support, and social assistance.According to the minister, the government has so far ex…