CARACAS, VENEZUELA — Venezuela was once one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America. The popular classes enjoyed major advances from the Bolivarian Revolution initiated by Hugo Chávez. Today Venezuela is experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis with severe humanitarian consequences. The U.S. government blames the crisis on the mismanagement and corruption of the Venezuelan…

Princeton, New Jersey (Scheerpost) — The established ruling elites know there is a crisis. They agreed, at least temporarily, to throw money at it with the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 bill known as American Rescue Plan (ARP). But the ARP will not alter the structural inequities, either by raising the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour or imposing…

Lawmakers in Washington agreed to a new $900 billion coronavirus stimulus package yesterday. The bill, like the previous CARES Act, appears to include huge new tax breaks for corporations and the very wealthy. However, of most note to average Americans is the means-tested check of up to $600 plus $600 per child that Republicans and…

Washington DC (ScheerPost) — Leaf blowers are everything wrong with capitalism. . . . I’ll explain that in a minute. We all know times are irredeemably grim, and they’re only getting worse. The unemployment level in America seems to be setting the record books aflame, and for some bizarre reason those numbers correlate nicely with…

Greater Albany Public Schools (GAPS) Superintendent, Melissa Goff, is calling on county commissioners to allocate funding for oversight of “suitable child care options” for the families of the 9,000 children enrolled in the small city’s K-12 system, who are now proscribed from their regular classrooms and will be forced to “attend” school on a screen…

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab today called for a day of national mourning after a massive explosion ripped through the capital Beirut yesterday, killing at least 100 people and injuring at least 4,000 others. The extent of the damage is immense; the city’s governor Marwan Abboud estimated that up to 300,000 have immediately been made homeless…

The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have already devastated the world. Over 14 million people have tested positive for the virus, and nearly 600,000 have died since it was first identified in December. And cases continue to rise: yesterday saw 248,998 people test positive – an all-time high. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus…

Mexico’s president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known colloquially as AMLO, arrived back in his nation’s capital yesterday aboard an American Airlines flight after his first state visit to the United States since taking office in a historic, landslide victory in 2018. The commercial flight included a stopover at Miami International Airport as coronavirus-induced protocols have resulted in…

The pressure on the global economy imposed by the measures to curb the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to erode whatever confidence the world still has in the U.S. dollar as a viable reserve currency. A shortfall in U.S. domestic savings, dropping to 1.4 percent of national income, brought on by the drawn-out shutdowns and structural changes to…

The actual number of people who stand to benefit the most from last month’s CARES Act could fit into Dodger Stadium and still have plenty of elbow room to catch any foul balls that might come their way. Just 43,000 of the richest Americans, those making at least $1 million a year, were handed a $1.6…

In a disturbing trend foreshadowed by suddenly ubiquitous multi-screen video chatting applications like Zoom and now Google Meet, a soup-to-nuts restructuring of corporate policies and procedures designed around a “new normal” where people are conditioned to avoid social contact and remain in their homes or cars, is being pushed by global consulting giants like McKinsey…

The economy has crashed. A nationwide pandemic that has (officially) claimed some 84,000 Americans has also resulted in an estimated 36 million filing for unemployment insurance and millions frequenting food banks for the first time. Yet business is booming for one unlikely industry; weapons manufacturers are busier than ever and are even advertising for tens…