For the first time in history, the 12 richest individuals in the United States collectively hold over $1 trillion in wealth. New figures from the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) show that, despite a pandemic that has stunted the economy for months, America’s billionaire class is becoming…

America’s billionaires have seen their wealth increase by 12.5 percent during the COVID-19 lockdown period. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, released a study Thursday showing that, in the eight weeks between March 18 and May 14, the country’s super wealthy have added a further $368.8 billion to their already…

America’s billionaires have seen their wealth increase by 12.5 percent during the COVID-19 lockdown period. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, released a study Thursday showing that, in the eight weeks between March 18 and May 14, the country’s super wealthy have added a further $368.8 billion to their already…

In the wake of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, premium supermarket chain Whole Foods has redesigned its uniform, giving employees shirts that designate them as “heroes” and “hard core.” The revamp is one of many actions large corporations across the world have taken to symbolically thank their workers amidst the global crisis. Whole Foods Workers:…

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s first centibillionaire, a man who vies with Bill Gates for the title of the planet’s richest individual, is asking the public for donations to provide basic support to his 800,000 employees who are suffering in poverty in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bezos announced: “We are establishing the…

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ security team has alleged in The Daily Beast that Saudi Arabian intelligence hacked his phone and passed to the National Enquirer intimate photos that the married Bezos had sent to his lover, Lauren Sanchez. Although the Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, has alleged that it received the material from Sanchez’s brother, this allegation may be…

A Business Insider story by author Aria Bendix caught my eye this morning by framing Bill Gates and his compatriot billionaires as “planet saving” heroes. According to the story, the same men who have made trillions off super-capitalism, and created a cabal that controls many governments, they’re now investing in six agricultural startups through Breakthrough…

SEATTLE — Amazon is lobbying the public with proposed guidelines for lawmakers to adopt when crafting legislation around the use of facial-recognition technology. Amazon’s own software, Rekognition, has been put to the test by rights groups such as the ACLU, who have come to troubling conclusions about racial bias and threats to civil liberties. The…

In Part 1 of our investigative series on Surveillance Capitalism, MPN spoke to author Yasha Levine and Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster about the rise of the Amazon.com empire and its fusion with the U.S. state apparatus. In our next installments, we will continue exploring the rise of Surveillance Capitalism and the implications of…