Poverty

Dear National Public Radio: The Stock Market is not the Economy– Tell us about Hunger and the Real Unemployment Rate

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – I have a pet peeve with NPR. Why do so many of its top- of- the- hour five minute newscasts begin and end with short stock market updates? Is there no more important factoid its news editors could be passing along to us? NPR likes to portray […]

Plutocracy

How global tax dodging costs lives: new research shows a direct link to increased death rates

The Conversation

By Bernadette O’Hare and Stephen Hall | – Tax abuse is an expensive business. According to a recent report by the Tax Justice Network, avoiding or evading tax deprives governments across the world of around US$427 billion (£302 billion) every year. This is money that could otherwise be spent on things like clean water, sanitation, […]

Epidemics

Pfizer and Big Pharma need to waive Patents on Covid-19 Vaccine to Save the World

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – It is a familiar story. A Pharma giant sells life- saving vaccine , which costs no more than 7 dollars a dose, to most nations at almost 20 dollars per shot. Knowing that unseemly profits in the midst of a global pandemic may elicit outrage and perhaps […]

Inequality

Just how Bold is Biden’s Plan to Pay for Infrastructure by Making Rich Pay their Fair Share?

Sam Pizzigati

( Inequality.org) – President Joe Biden has made no secret of his admiration for Franklin D. Roosevelt. He’s even given a painted portrait of FDR the most prominent place of honor in the White House Oval Office. A bit more significantly, Biden has just announced the most ambitious gameplan — since FDR’s New Deal — […]

African-Americans

Systemic Racism won’t End with One Trial, But Biden-Harris can enlist Government in addressing Economic Inequality at its Root

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – African-Americans face aggressive policing in part because, on average, they lack resources. Household wealth allows a family to donate to political campaigns, to ensure a good education for their children, and to join influential civic clubs and organizations. The Center for American Progress reports that in 2019, before the distortions […]

Employment

For Workers struggling to Unionize at Amazon, it is a Matter of Life and Death

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – That unions lost the battle to organize Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama plant should and did come as no surprise. The workers were up against one of the world’s most affluent and powerful corporations. Yet despite the 2 to 1 loss, the organization effort did help to reveal Amazon’s […]

Inequality

How the Pandemic spelled the end of Trickle-Down Economics: We need Wealth to Percolate up

Jim Hightower

( Otherwords.org) – The past year proves that a lot of conventional economic wisdom is neither true nor wise. For example: 1) “We don’t have the money.” The power elites tell us it would be nice to do the big-ticket reforms America needs, but the money just isn’t there. Then a pandemic slammed into America, […]

Inequality

On Tax Day, the Billionaires must Start Paying their Fair Share

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – On Tax Day, there’s more than one elephant in the room, and they’re all in mansions. Elephants occupy the bulging mansions of 657 American billionaires, 43 of them new this past pandemic year. Their combined wealth soared to $4.2 trillion – up $1.3 trillion – between March 21, […]

Banking

An Open Letter to Senator Joe Manchin: Stop worrying about Inflation and Focus on Keeping Hurting Workers Afloat

John Buell

Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – Dear Senator Manchin; Corporate media now portray you as on of the most powerful politicians in DC. Hard bargaining on the amount and length of unemployment insurance chopped 100 dollars a week off the compensation workers will receive. This compromise, which you defended on the grounds it […]