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Pandemic: How big banks and big AG share blame
Here in the U.S., agribusiness lines up with pharmaceutical and military contractors in terms of being a political force to be reckoned with and, in effect, help run the country. Their needs are protected so that these pathogens have the best lawyers on the planet.
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#Unis4all: An Open Letter to the U.S. Higher Education Community
Universities can immediately bypass feckless state & federal legislatures & finance themselves directly with “Unis” supported by the Federal Reserve For a growing majority of outspoken administrators and faculty, the economic fallout associated with the Covid-19 crisis threatens to catapult U. S. higher education into a draconian age of austerity, layoffs, and closures. The question, […]
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Growth figures underscore economic crisis amidst COVID
Early evidence on the intensity and drivers of the COVID-induced crisis in the U.S. and Europe suggests that the official response may lengthen the recession and delay recovery
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Hunger rises dramatically in America
Given the dramatic rise in unemployment, cuts in hours, and sharp decline in gig economy work, it isn’t surprising that hunger is becoming more common, particularly among families with children. Nearly half the U.S. couldn’t withstand a $400 emergency, and most households that have taken hits are seeing bigger income losses than that.
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Major Lazer – ‘Get Free’ feat. Amber (of Dirty Projectors)
The speaker is too poor to move to a different region, so they can only move slightly farther away from an inevitable problem.
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The exodus of finance from the third world
There is an exodus of finance from the third world at present, far exceeding in scale what had occurred in 2008 after the financial crisis.
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America’s super-rich see their wealth rise by $282 Billion in three weeks of pandemic
America’s billionaires have accrued more wealth in the past three weeks alone than they made in total prior to 1980.
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Chart of the day
A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies, “Billionaire Bonanza 2020: Wealth Windfalls, Tumbling Taxes, and Pandemic Profiteers,” reveals that the wealth of U.S. billionaires is indeed staying at home.
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Student debt jubilee—pandemic edition
The United States is currently experiencing a dystopian orgy of death and destruction.
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Capitalism’s weak doses of socialism to treat the economic infection of COVID-19
The same proposals that were demonized yesterday as radical socialism are embraced today to save the society from collapse.
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Avoid austerity to prevent a state and local coronavirus depression
Local budget cuts enacted a decade ago left states and cities dangerously unprepared for COVID-19. We shouldn’t make those same mistakes again.
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Marx in the era of pandemic capitalism
How could Karl Marx (1818–1883) help us interpret the current crisis? His theory of history offers critical resources to interpret the unprecedented crisis which is shaking the world today, while indicating at the same time that ‘the world after’ so much mentioned could only be anti-capitalist.
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#MintTheCoin & COVID Relief with the Modern Money Network
Rohan Grey and Nathan Tankus join Money on the Left to discuss the flurry of debate about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) arising out of the Coronavirus crisis. We focus, in particular, on the Modern Money Network’s multi-pronged efforts to illuminate and remedy the resulting economic devastation. At the center of our conversation is Rohan’s contribution […]
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Data show COVID-19 is hitting essential workers and people of color hardest
Newly released data from the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) show that COVID-19 is present at higher rates in certain Boston communities, including Hyde Park, Mattapan, Dorchester, and East Boston.
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Don’t threaten Afghans—it will be counterproductive
The principal deputy assistant secretary at the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA) in the U.S. State Department, Alice Wells, dropped a bombshell on the Afghan government and the country’s political elites on April 4—and caught the international donors by surprise, too—by linking all aid to Afghanistan to the formation of an inclusive government in Kabul.
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The Federal Reserve’s Coronavirus Crisis Actions, explained (Part 4)
Ten days after the last central bank swap line announcement, the Federal Reserve followed up with an announcement of another facility meant to help a lower tier of central banks. In this facility the Federal Reserve would make a standing offer to temporarily purchase U.S. treasury securities from central banks (and supranational monetary institutions) and sell them back to them the following day.
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University workers must not accept wage cuts in exchange for ‘job security’
The government, university bosses and national officials of the National Tertiary Education Union are combining to attack uni workers’ pay and conditions.
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Stanch the bleeding from local and state finances with local currencies
At the risk of making it seem like central bank swap lines are the solution to every problem, a swap line for local and state governments is the perfect tool using the Federal Reserve’s existing legal authority and can facilitate supporting these local currencies.
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A Russian firewall for Venezuela against U.S. sanctions
The optics of the Russian oil leviathan Rosneft’s decision to sell its subsidiary Rosneft Trading SA and sell all its assets in Venezuela after the US Treasury sanctioned its trading arm two weeks ago as part of Washington’s regime change project to oust president Nicolás Maduro, may not look good to the uninformed outside observer.
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The Coronavirus depression requires a new approach to budgeting
Congress recently passed a 1.5-1.7 Trillion dollar stimulus bill (as I wrote about last week, the reported headline number is including a useless accounting gimmick which provides no additional support to the U.S. economy). Part of the reason we can report such an exact number is congress budgets in exacts.Take a look at these two sections of the CARES Act, picked at random.