Economy

By Tom Stacey ” Europeans and other western nations have dominated automotive excellence for over a century. Whether it is the satisfying thud of the door closing on a Volkswagen from Wolfsburg, or the beauty of a Ferrari from Modena, these brands are iconic – and very lucrative for their manufacturers. When we think of […]

Epidemics

Public Citizen: It Turns out Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine depends Heavily on Publicly-Financed Research

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Public Citizen recently uncovered “an agreement that the European Commission reached with Pfizer and BioNTech last November to purchase 100 million doses of the companies’ mRNA vaccine, which was developed with the support of https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-09/pfizer-vaccine-s-funding-came-from-berlin-not-washington”> government funding and U.S. taxpayer-financed technology. In the 104-page contract, Public Citizen […]

Employment

Unemployment Insurance Isn’t Holding Back the Economy. Inequality Is.

OtherWords

By Rebekah Entralgo | – An estimated 9 million Americans got the rug pulled out from under them over Labor Day weekend as enhanced pandemic federal unemployment benefits expired, leaving millions of families in the lurch during a record-breaking season for COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. Some 35 million people — nearly 1 in 10 Americans […]

Homelessness

The Land of the Free, Where So Many of the Brave Are Homeless: Resisting Evictions Amid a Pandemic

Liz Theoharis

( Tomdispatch.com) – Over the past weeks, multiple crises have merged: a crisis of democracy with the most significant attack on voting rights since Reconstruction; a climate crisis with lives and livelihoods upended in the Gulf Coast and the Northeast by extreme weather events and in the West by a stunning fire season; and an […]

Afghanistan

As Banks threaten to Collapse and Aid Dwindles, 93% of Afghans already don’t get Sufficient Food

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – UN World Food Program surveys in August and September, Al Jazeera reports, found that 93 percent of Afghans already are not getting sufficient food, for the most part because they lack the cash to purchase it. Things are about to get worse, as Afghanistan under the Taliban is cut off […]

Inequality

Tax the ‘Trillion-Dollar Seven’

OtherWords

By Bob Lord | – ( Otherwords.org ) – Democrats want to spend $3.5 trillion on jobs and infrastructure. A third of that could be covered by just seven billionaires. By Bob Lord | September 1, 2021 The collective wealth of the seven wealthiest Americans has now reached nearly $1 trillion. And these seven pay […]

Afghanistan

Taliban seek China as Silk Road reconstruction Partner

Middle East Monitor

Ali Hussein Bakir | – ( Middle East Monitor) – In an interview conducted recently with an Italian newspaper, the Taliban movement spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, pointed out that the movement was ready to rely on China economically in its bid to manage the country following their swift takeover after the US troops withdrawal from the […]

Featured

On Labor Day, Poverty for Workers has fallen from 12.8% to 8.5%

Juan Cole

Revised. Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – This Labor Day, American workers finally have something have to celebrate, by virtue of having voted for a Democratic president and Congress. The pandemic-driven labor shortage has raised wages. Direct payments from the government, including an expanded child tax credit and expanded unemployment benefits added $3,200 to the income […]

Climate Crisis

Climate change: why government failure to act isn’t the problem

The Conversation

By Nick Bernards | – ( The Conversation) – The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report underscored the dire state of the climate crisis, concluding that “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions” are needed to limit global warming even to 1.5°C or 2°C. The report renewed calls for urgent action […]