(2020-08-04). We Need an Economic Survival Package Not Another Stimulus. counterpunch.org 
There continues to be enormous confusion about what we should be trying to accomplish in the next pandemic relief package. This is best demonstrated by Republicans' obsession with getting people back to work, with a mixture of cuts to unemployment benefits and return to work bonuses. Ignoring the questionable economic logic (there is zero evidence
(2020-08-04). Teachers protest Jordan government's closure of union and harsh crackdown. wsws.org As poverty and social unrest rise, the government has used the draconian emergency laws introduced in March to curtail democratic rights.
(2020-08-04). Anger grows across the US as closed-door talks continue on expired unemployment relief. wsws.org Millions of American workers don't know how they'll pay rent or where their next meal will come from.
(2020-08-04). How to generate unemployment and deflation. indybay.org The theory put forward by fair-weather philosophers that the pandemic will be a salutary shock leading to a better, more sustainable world is wrong. Forced renunciation and economic decline do not make anything better. Less is not more, but less. Corona is not an opportunity, it is an evil. We can only hope that one day it will pass.
(2020-08-04). Racial And Ethnic Economic Inequality And The COVID-19 Pandemic. popularresistance.org The Democracy Collaborative prepared a report, created for the Healthcare Anchor Network, that looked at how racial and ethnic disparities in the economy are showing up in the COVID-19 pandemic and in the public policy response to the pandemic. The report also covers how the economic effects of the pandemic will likely impact racial and ethnic inequality. | Every passing day brings new, painful evidence of how the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately affecting people of color in the United States.
(2020-08-04). For Egalitarians, A Sudden Sense Of Possibility. popularresistance.org Something seems to be in the air these days — besides coronavirus. A hopefulness. A boldness. A conviction that we now have a real opportunity for blunting the corporate power that's done so much to make the United States the world's most unequal wealthy nation. | How can we seize that opportunity? New reports from two veteran national advocacy groups — Public Citizen and Oxfam America — are offering up a gameplan. | Public Citizen released its "blueprint for reform" last week on the tenth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act, the 2010 legislation that tried to clean out the corporate and financial…
(2020-08-04). 'How The South Won The Civil War'. popularresistance.org If you think about the Civil War as a war between two different ideologies, two different concepts of what America is supposed to be, is it supposed to be a place where a few wealthy men direct the labor and the lives of the people below them, the women and people of color below them, the way the Confederacy argued? Is that America? Or is America what Lincoln and his ilk in the Republican Party in the North defined the democracy as during the Civil War? Is it a place where all men are equal before the law and should have equal access to resources? And of course, I use the word man there, but that's because that's…
(2020-08-03). Take on the Tech Mob Now or Perish. counterpunch.org Six months into a global pandemic, the US economy just took its most grievous hit on record, while Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook only added wealth. In just three months, April through June, so many workers were furloughed, laid off or forced to work and school from home, that the economy shriveled by 32.9% or
(2020-08-03). Poland's "Lublin Triangle" Will Create Lots of Trouble for Russia-Belarus Relations. globalresearch.ca Poland's ambitions to restore its long-lost Great Power status in Europe received a fresh impetus following the establishment of the so-called "Lublin Triangle" between itself, Lithuania, and Ukraine that de-facto aims to revive the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as the core of …
(2020-08-03). A fractured empire, within and without. mronline.org 
Two things seem certain at this point: (1) The Trump administration will continue to extend its heavy handed neofascist tactics in the next three months, seeking to expand its political base by these means, and (2) the White House and the Republican Party will try to engineer another set of stimulus payments/tax cuts in early …
(2020-08-03). The Unemployment Crisis Is a True National Emergency. zcomm.org The incompetent criminals ruling the U.S. are about to push millions of Americans off a terrifying financial cliff…
(2020-08-03). Comparing Poverty in India and America May Surprise You. commondreams.org A homeless man sleeps under an American Flag blanket on a park bench on September 10, 2013 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/gettyimages-1802162571_0.jpg …
(2020-08-03). Call for 'Emergency Charity Stimulus' as Billionaire Wealth Soars and US Nonprofits Sink. commondreams.org Mandating an increase of giving from charitable funds, says one advocate, "would move an estimated $200 billion off the sidelines and into front-line working charities without increasing taxes or adding to the deficit." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/food_coronavirus_nonprofits.jpg …
(2020-08-03). Groups Urge Federal Appeals Court to Affirm Wealth-Based Barriers to Voting are Unconstitutional. commondreams.org ______________________________…
(2020-08-03). Republican Senators Commit Political Suicide by Holding Up Stimulus in Election Year. commondreams.org Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) arrives at the Senate chamber as the Senate impeachment trial of U.S. President Donald Trump continues at the U.S. Capitol on January 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/susan_collins_fake_moderate.jpg …
(2020-08-02). 'Socialist Trump?' Trump says 'changes must be made soon' to tackle income disparity in rare dig at 1-percenters. rt.com 
US President Donald Trump said he agrees that the income gap between billionaires and the rest of Americans has grown too big, vowing to take action "soon" in a tweet that left his detractors puzzled. | "I actually agree with this. Too much income disparity. Changes must be made, and soon!" Trump wrote on Saturday, retweeting a Business Insider clip that cites a recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies, claiming that total US billionaire wealth grew by $637 between March and June, while 40 million Americans lost their jobs. | I actually agree with this. Too much income disparity. Changes must be made,…
(2020-08-02). The One Percent's Attack on Unemployment Benefits Shows How Broken Our Democracy Is. zcomm.org The dignity of work is restored when employment leads to working people securing living wages and having their voices heard…
(2020-08-02). An Economic Survival Package, not a Stimulus Package. cepr.net There continues to be enormous confusion about what we should be trying to accomplish in the next pandemic relief package. This is best demonstrated by Republicans' obsession with getting people back to work, with a mixture of cuts to unemployment benefits and return to work bonuses. Ignoring the questionable economic logic (there is zero evidence …
(2020-08-01). Sri Lankan SEP to hold online meeting to conclude its election campaign. wsws.org The SEP is the only party fighting for an international socialist perspective against deepening social inequality, the danger of imperialist war and the threat of dictatorship.
(2020-08-01). US unemployment supplement expires, setting the stage for mass hunger and homelessness. wsws.org The congressional stalemate over an extension of the unemployment pay supplement, which is certain to result in the total elimination or a major cut in the benefit, is a declaration of war against the entire working population.
(2020-08-01). Stimulus Plan Negotiations Turn to Student Debt. indybay.org Student debt relief is now included in round the clock stimulus package negotiations on Capitol Hill.
(2020-08-01). The 1 Percent's Attack on Unemployment Benefits is a Sign of Our Broken Democracy. commondreams.org The long-term systemic reason that working people are willing to accept jobs that cannot provide enough income to cover basic needs is because they are unable to organize and demand higher wages. Unionization is clearly tied to higher and more equal wages. (Photo: SEIU via Twitter) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/union_0.jpg …
(2020-08-01). "They're Playing With Us": Anger With GOP Growing as $600 Unemployment Benefit Lapses. commondreams.org "All our government wants is money in their pockets, while the people are poor and starving and scrounging." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/lines.jpg …
(2020-07-31). ECLAC and PAHO Call on Nations to Think About Health First. telesurenglish.net The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Thursday assured that the economies could only be reactivated if countries manage to flatten the COVID-19 curve. | RELATED: | High levels of inequality, poverty, and informality, as well as limited access to quality health care on time, explain why the pandemic is hurting Latin America so much. | T…
(2020-07-31). Health must come before the economy, insists top UN official for Latin America and the Caribbean. news.un.org In Latin America, where much of the region has dealt with years of sluggish growth, the economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing millions more into poverty, says Alicia Bárcena, the head of the UN regional body for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
(2020-07-31). Federal $600 a week addition to unemployment insurance runs out. fightbacknews.org San José, CA – 25 million Americans or more are losing their additional $600 a week in unemployment insurance benefits even as the number of people applying for unemployment benefits continues to rise. Up to one-third of all renters have already lost eviction protection from the federal government, and the Republican proposal does not include extending it. Millions of other households are under threat of losing their electrical power for not paying their bills. | The depth of the economic crisis stoked by the uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic was shown this morning, July 30, in the Commerce Department's report on Gr…
(2020-07-31). Chile Records The Highest Unemployment Rate In A Decade. telesurenglish.net Chile reached the highest overall unemployment rate in a decade amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 12.2 percent, the National Statistics Office (INE) revealed on Friday. | RELATED: | According to the institution during the second quarter of this year, from April to June, the number of unemployed people soared to 996.900, an increment of 299.100 compared to the same period in 2019. | "The national unemployment rate was 12.2 pe…
(2020-07-31). Here's How We Remake The Economy. popularresistance.org To defend the $600 unemployment payments as both morally and economically necessary is not to suggest that the CARES Act is a sufficient solution to our economic problems. Nor, says Pavlina Tcherneva, Associate Professor of Economics at Bard College and a Research Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute and advisor to Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign, is the Democratic-led HEROES Act, which would extend the payments through January 2021 if Senate Republicans and the Trump administration would support it. Dr. Tcherneva studies the impact of unemployment on growth, income inequality and public health, an…
(2020-07-31). As U.S. Eviction Crisis Looms, Remember That Poverty Is Weaponized by the Elite. strategic-culture.org Caitlin JOHNSTONE | CNBC News "On Friday, the federal moratorium on evictions in properties with federally backed mortgages and for tenants who receive government-assisted housing expired." CNBC reports. "The Urban Institute estimated that provision covered nearly 30% of the country's rental units." | "It's li…
(2020-07-30). The Clock Is Ticking: 5 Key Demands for the New Coronavirus Bill. commondreams.org Extend unemployment benefits to help people survive the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. (Photo: Screenshot) | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/views-article/thumbs/screen_shot_2020-07-30_at_3.18.36_pm.png …
