2020-07-02: News Headlines

Project Censored (2020-07-02). Project Censored's 2020 Summer Reading List. projectcensored.org From COVID-19 to unprecedented unemployment levels and nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism, the Summer of 2020 is like none other in recent history. In the midst of…

Mark Gruenberg (2020-07-02). BLS jobs report shows U.S. employment crash continues. peoplesworld.org WASHINGTON—Donald Trump's happy talk today notwithstanding, the nation's current depression, the employment crash caused by closures forced by the coronavirus pandemic, continues, the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows. That's because 1.445 million more people applied for regular state unemployment benefits, and another 839,563 sought special federal benefit checks in the week ending June …

yenisafak (2020-07-02). Trump says jobs report proves US economy 'roaring back'. yenisafak.com U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday at a press briefing celebrated a government report showing the country gained 4.8 million jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 11.1% last month, when states began allowing businesses to reopen from strict shutdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus pandemic."Today's announcement proves that our economy is roaring back," Trump said, rattling off different sectors that saw job gains according to the monthly report. "These are historic numbers."

yenisafak (2020-07-02). US economy gains 4.8M jobs; unemployment falls to 11.1%. yenisafak.com The unemployment rate in the US dropped to 11.1% in June as the economy gained 4.8 million jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday.Data released a day early because of the July 4 holiday reflected the continued resumption of economic activity that was curtailed in March and April due to the coronavirus pandemic, which pushed job losses to Great Depression-era levels.The unemployment rate declined 2.2 points from 13.3% in May and the number of jobless Americans fell by 3.2 million to 17.8 million.Employment in leisure and hospitality rose sharply and notable job gains also occurred in retail, education…

Melvin Goodman (2020-07-01). De-Militarizing the United States. counterpunch.org More than a half-century ago, exactly one year before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King Jr. brilliantly identified the keys to the American political, economic, and social crisis that has worsened over the years. At the Riverside Church in New York City, King linked the militarism of the Vietnam War; the racism of American society; and the inequality and materialism of the American economy to demand a movement toward social justice that we seek today.

Rick Baum (2020-07-01). The Pandemic and Wealth Inequality. counterpunch.org The latest figures from the Federal Reserve Board on wealth inequality cover through the quarter ending in March 2020. They show a reduction in wealth inequality—something that has happened during economic downturns. More importantly, according to the Fed, wealth inequality has generally been increasing since the first covered period, the third quarter of 1989 to when it reached its highest level in the fourth quarter of 2019 during the Trump regime.

commondreams (2020-07-01). Proposed Vacation Tax Credit Exposes Vacation Inequality. commondreams.org ______________________________…

WSWS (2020-07-01). COVID-19 increase at UK's 2 Sisters, Rowan and Kober meat processing factories. wsws.org Inadequate and unsafe forms of transport, poor working conditions, and rundown accommodation are class issues bound up with the wealth extraction demanded by capitalism.

WSWS (2020-07-01). Record 47.2 percent of working-age Americans without jobs. wsws.org According to the employment-population ratio, a more accurate measure of joblessness than the unemployment rate, a postwar record number of Americans were without work in May.

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2020-07-01). Big Pharma Trade Group Blasted as 'Morally Bankrupt' for Suing to Block Minnesota Insulin Affordability Law. commondreams.org The law is named for Alec Smith, an uninsured 26-year-old who died in 2017 after rationing his insulin. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/gettyimages-121919080211.jpg

Prof Michel Chossudovsky (2020-06-30). VIDEO: The 2020 Economic Crisis. Global Poverty, Unemployment and Despair. globalresearch.ca A complex decision-making process is instrumental in the closing down of national economies Worldwide. We are led to believe that the lockdown is the solution. Politicians and health officials in more than 150 countries obey orders emanating from higher authority.

news.un (2020-06-30). Impacts of COVID-19 disproportionately affect poor and vulnerable: UN chief. news.un.org Addressing poverty eradication on Tuesday in front of the General Assembly, UN chief António Guterres warned that the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are falling "disproportionately on the most vulnerable: people living in poverty, the working poor, women and children, persons with disabilities, and other marginalized groups".

Robert Pollin (2020-06-30). Full Employment Will Overcome Neoliberalism & the COVID-19 Jobs Crisis. zcomm.org The world needs a New Deal to counter levels of unemployment and inequality last seen in the Great Depression…

Newsclick (2020-06-30). Revert to full employment to overcome neoliberalism and COVID-19 jobs crisis. peoplesdispatch.org Economist Robert Pollin advocates a macroeconomic agenda centred on full employment to deal with the rapidly unfolding jobs crisis. The decades-long neoliberal attack on the working class has heightened with COVID-19. He says that the world needs a New Deal to counter levels of unemployment and inequality, which were last seen during the Great Depression.

Shawgi Tell (2020-06-30). The Stock Market Produces Nothing. dissidentvoice.org On June 2, 2020, Jan Dehn of Ashmore Investment Management Limited remarked: If central banks were to allow asset prices to reflect the actual underlying fundamentals — record levels of debt, record low productivity growth, record unemployment, record populism — the resulting crashes in financial markets would be so large that most Western economies would …

yenisafak (2020-06-30). Spain braces for slow economic recovery post-pandemic. yenisafak.com As Spain saw new daily infections rise by 301 on Tuesday, the county's central bank released an annual report suggesting that the economy will not recover from the health crisis until late 2022.The Health Ministry reported a spike in deaths adding nine to the total. The nationwide death toll has hit 28,355.The central bank's 238-page annual report not only predicts that economic recovery will take years, but that women, low-income workers and young people will bear the brunt of the economic crisis."Spain's economy faces the COVID-19 crisis with inequality significantly higher than before the financial crisis of 2…

RT (2020-06-29). VIDEO Activists set up guillotine outside Jeff Bezos' home, call for end to Amazon. rt.com Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was targeted on Sunday by activists, who set up a guillotine outside his Washington DC home and called for an end to the "exploitation" of the company's employees. | In front of the guillotine was a sign reading: "Support our poor communities not our wealthy men." | Footage from the scene shows demonstrators outside the residence saying: "It is still exploitation, and when they become threatened, and we have no voice, the knives come out." | Wow going after newspaper owners like this smh these attacks on the press must end

Deirdre Griswold (2020-06-29). COVID figures reveal stark contrasts. workers.org June 29 — No country boasts louder of its success than the United States. This is the most powerful capitalist country in the world, based on its vast wealth, huge industrial output and formidable military. A medical brigade of over 200 Cuban doctors prepares to leave Jose Martí Airport in . . . |