A report by the UK House of Commons library has warned that the continued accumulation of wealth at the top will fuel growing distrust and anger over the coming decade unless action is taken to restore balance. According to the report, seen by The Guardian, if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, then the top 1 percent will hold 64 percent of the world’s wealth by 2030. [...]

Thousands of people in one of America’s richest cities live on sidewalks infested with flesh-eating bacteria and tuberculosis. A Redfish Media report looks at the chronic homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. Homelessness in Los Angeles has increased 43 percent in just four years. [...]

The Wall Street Journal is accused by its employees of attempting to suppress its own story after a senior editor allegedly tried to bury a deep dive into the 2008 global financial crisis and its aftermath. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published on Tuesday a graphics-heavy in-depth study on the aftermath of the world-shaking 2008 financial crisis, particularly noting that banking and investmen [...]

The historic launch of the long-awaited trading of Chinese crude futures this week has stirred up a heated debate among analysts as to whether the new commodity product will prosper or flop. Some market analysts expressed doubts over the success of the petro-yuan, citing Beijing’s yearning for total control over trading as one of the key reasons for a potential bust. [...]

A bitterly-fought political campaign to address the rapidly-growing homeless population in a wealthy southern California county points to the yawning inequality gap in the US. A wide-ranging plan in southern California's Orange County that was intended to relocate hundreds of homeless — including children, women and the elderly who had been forcefully kicked out of long-term camps by placing the [...]

Some 42 percent of elderly US citizens have less than $10,000 put aside for their golden years, according to the report by a personal finance resource GoBankingRates, which polled over 1,000 adults last month. The survey, carried out for the third consecutive year, suggests that a lack of planning and savings, along with a longer life expectancy, may shatter people’s retirement dreams. [...]

Those colorfully-dressed workers making sure your US short-haul domestic flight is properly packed, safely inspected and flight-ready are not paid enough, frequently requiring social services to live. Although employer American Airlines posted a shareholder-pleasing $1.9 billion profit in 2017, many of its workers are scrambling at the poverty line, selling their blood and receiving food stamps [...]

The US, the world’s leading debtor nation, has reached another questionable milestone in its seemingly headlong rush into economic oblivion. The combined debt of the United States has topped $21 trillion for the first time, according to government statistics, following an announcement a mere six months ago that the debt had hit $20 trillion for the first time. [...]

The recent boost in Russian agriculture has made food sales abroad much more profitable for the country than exports of military weapons, according to President Vladimir Putin. “Today, agriculture exports exceed arms sales by more than a third. $28.8 billion from agricultural sector, $15.6 billion from the defense industry," Putin told farmers in Krasnodar on Monday. [...]

The Cold War displaced the legacies of the New Deal. Time and Trump are now displacing Cold War legacies. Where capitalism was questioned and challenged in the 1930s and into the 1940s, doing that became taboo after 1948. Yet in the wake of the 2008 crash, critical thought about capitalism resumed. [...]

May you live in interesting times, goes the Chinese proverb. Few can doubt that we are indeed living in such an interesting time. Big changes are afoot in the world, it seems. None more so than the collapsing of the American Empire. The US is going through an historic "correction" in the same way that the Soviet Union did some 30 years ago when the latter was confronted with the reality [...]

Recent changes to the US’ tax rates coupled with its current-account shortfall are creating stormy waters for the greenback and there is already evidence that the ship is letting in water. Bloomberg financial journalists have stated the greenback “is under the siege”, citing what they call “twin deficits”. So what’s the evidence? [...]

It is an age-old statecraft technique to seek unity within a state by depicting an external enemy or threat. Russia is the bête noire again, as it was during the Cold War as part of the Soviet Union. But the truth is Western states are challenged by internal problems. Ironically, by denying their own internal democratic challenges, Western authorities are only hastening their institutional demis [...]

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump released his “efficient, effective and accountable” budget for fiscal year 2019 and, to no surprise, social programs are on the chopping block. Aside from wanting to privatize the International Space Station and eliminate the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, Trump is also looking to cut food assistance programs by $214 billion. [...]

As the wealthy continue sucking the country dry, the question isn’t if the US will cease to provide a decent standard of living for its people. Rather it is how many people will be sacrificed on the way down. In America, the richest nation in the world when measured by raw GDP, children are getting sick from living by open pools of raw sewage.. [...]

Joe Biden keeps scoffing at Russia and seems to genuinely believe it is a rapidly declining power. This incorrect assumption suggests senior US politicians are receiving extremely poor intel on the subject. At first glance, Biden would make an unlikely fan of the Scottish writer J.M. Barrie, [...]

Vladimir Putin was first elected as Russian President in 2000. Here’s how the Russian economy has transformed in the intervening years by numbers. Before Putin’s election, Russia had a $9,889 GDP per capita by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). [...]

The greenback has touched the lowest level against major global currencies since 2015. This comes after the US treasury secretary announced that Washington favors a weak dollar in trade.  Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Steven Mnuchin said that a weaker dollar “is good for us as it relates to trade and opportunities.” [...]

World’s richest 1% bagged 82% of global wealth in 2017, while poorest half got nothing – Oxfam The inequality crisis is worsening, according to a new study by global charity Oxfam, which found that the world’s richest 42 people own the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 percent worldwide. [...]

The current administration is afraid of competition in the international arena in a number of directions, and behaves tougher than the Obama administration, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday. "It seems to me that despite President Trump's line during the election campaign, this legacy, unfortunately, has been preserved in the actions of the current US administration, [...]

Happy cultures are all alike. But this is not a happy culture. Sullen and sour, America seems like a country whose nerves are shot. And, after 16 straight years of war, why wouldn’t the political neurons be frayed? Each day the fear factor is being ratcheted up. New threats are being targeted. New wars being planned. A paralytic dread hangs over the Republic. [...]

Ukraine’s hryvnia has hit rock bottom, now 34 against the euro. This is the lowest point for the Ukrainian currency ever tracked. The hryvnia has also plunged to a record low against the Russian ruble, trading at 4.99 hryvnia to 10 rubles. The Ukrainian currency is on its hat-trick against the US dollar. One dollar is worth 28.44 hryvnia; the historical record was 30.01 hryvnia in February 2015. [...]