Truckers used to make $110K per year on average. Now many are homeless. So what happened? We dug into it as part of our new Class Room series, which looks at how jobs that used to provide a solid, middle class life now barely provide a living. With trucking, that story starts with deregulation. Big Box stores like Walmart were allowed to crush worker power and wages across an entire industry. Now [...]

The definition of a failed state according to some experts is: A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly. Another characteristic of a failed state includes a central government so weak or ineffective that it has an inability to raise taxes or other support and has little pra [...]

Colombia is being crushed under a failed 2016 peace accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). While the agreement initially brought hope for a brighter future, its implementation has been marred by complexities and setbacks. Colombia is also dealing with runaway inflation that is crushing the population.   [...]

37.9 million Americans are currently living in poverty, accounting for 11.6% of the total population. That’s despite the fact that America ranks first as the richest nation in the world in terms of GDP. Poverty in the U.S. is not only a humanitarian crisis but an economic one as well. About 11% of the federal budget of $665 billion goes to economic security programs every year. Child poverty al [...]

Tulsi Gabbard testifies on the Weaponization of the Federal Government during the House Subcommittee meeting. At the hearing, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard spoke about her reaction to being accused of “treasonous lies” in a tweet by Utah Sen. Mitt Romney last year, over claims she made about Ukraine. Gabbard, who was invited by Republicans to testify, focused her remarks on cancel c [...]

Europe stares at recession: Euro hits 20-year low. Global recession fears: India emerges as the bright spot. China power crisis: Shanghai skyline goes dark. America’s student debt crisis: $1.6 trillion. Why are young people dying of heart attacks? [...]

The issue is not food shortage but speculation on food commodities and the manipulation of an inherently flawed global food system that serves the interests of corporate agribusiness traders and suppliers of inputs at the expense of people’s needs and genuine food security. [...]

As the US runs out of concrete resources to sell, bankers have had to get clever - whether this means repackaging assets already sold six times over or inventing new ways to cash in on items once considered intangible. By the time Americans realized that the promised ‘trickle-down’ theory of neoliberal economics was in fact more of a speedy trickle-up, the government had all but destroyed [...]

Capitalism has made us cruel. My brother just tested positive for Covid. He can’t smell or taste anything. He feels exhausted. He got it from work. It’s the only place he’s gone for the last year— no friends, no dating, no social life. They wouldn’t give him time off to get vaccinated. They’ve dumped overtime on him for the last month, and they never tell him his schedule more than [...]

Debates in Congress over a new COVID-19 relief bill have dragged on for months, even as new coronavirus cases have hit record highs. A slew of federal programs designed to alleviate the economic impacts of pandemic shutdowns will expire in weeks, setting the stage for a series of crises that could leave millions more in the US hungry and homeless. As the COVID-19 pandemic and its associat [...]

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy look at the accumulation of debt in the United States in memory of David Graeber, author of ‘Debt: The First 5,000 Years’. Max also talks to Otavio ‘Tavi’ Costa, portfolio manager at Crescat Capital, about credit exhaustion among other things. They point out that the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks have a problem [...]

America is not based on hard work. Get it out of your head that this society is set up to be fair. Fair would be everyone with a roof over their head. Congress’s inability to actually represent the real-live human beings of America, combined with an economic system that rewards lack of empathy and an excess of greed, has brought us to a dark time when an oncoming tsunami of financial ruin, desti [...]

How Much Is Really a ‘Living Wage’ in Every State? Can you afford to live where you are? The answer depends on two factors — your earnings and the cost of living in your area. The federal minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour. Some states and a few cities set their minimum wages higher. The cost of living varies a great deal across the country. Even in lower-cost areas, a minim [...]

The coronavirus pandemic is likely to spark an unprecedented fall in global trade as well as an economic crisis rivaling the Great Depression, the head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has warned. “We confront what may well be the deepest economic downturn of our lifetimes,” the organization’s Director General Roberto Azevedo said in a grim forecast. [...]

Most major global economies have already been affected by the outbreak, which has forced many workers to stay in their homes and almost entirely dried up the restaurant and hospitality industries. The US economy is facing the prospect of sustaining a heavier blow from the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak than it suffered from the financial crisis between 2008 and 2009, according to the estimates of e [...]

Last week, the IMF issued a stark warning about the global economy. While most large Western states are vulnerable to a new crisis, Russia has prepared its defenses. Kristalina Georgieva isn’t any sort of conspiracy theorist; she’s the head of the International Monetary Fund. And when she warns that the global economy risks another “Great Depression,” you would think everyone would listen. [...]

It sounds almost unbelievable, but a number of US citizens are deciding to cash out of the elusive ‘American dream’ as they settle down in foreign places, such as Vietnam, where many of them were once loathed as invaders. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. For many Americans, those names invoke powerful memories and images of unspeakable violence, and perhaps the last places on earth to consider visitin [...]

Forecasting the imminent demise of European banks, an expert talks RT’s Keiser Report through last week’s repo market meltdown and what it may indicate. “The treasuries that settled last week didn’t go well on the funding market – the Fed had to step in and do a $75 billion repo facility on an overnight basis for these treasury securities,” [...]

The Trump administration wants to redefine the poverty level, which would kick hundreds of thousands with marginal incomes off welfare, while simultaneously reducing poverty rates in America. [...]