Portside

As fewer people remain able to afford rent in big cities, more leave those cities for cheaper regions, or simply fall out of the housing market and into homelessness. Think tanks and activist groups are thinking outside the box with solutions.

The fight for housing security has already become a part of the general struggle against inequality made possible by the epochal rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Last week’s actions by professional athletes in the NBA, WNBA, NFL, MLB, and professional tennis are a call to action for all of the labor movement.

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COVID-19's catastrophic rates of sickness and death, as well as tragic economic consequences, require the boldest remedies this country is capable of mustering. There will be no economic recovery until the virus is contained.

Ending the pandemic was the only thing the government could have done to save the economy, Trump’s botched response means without a second massive federal intervention millions of US families who are just keeping their head above water will sink.

The crisis this time is unique in an especially topsy-turvy way. In past capitalist crises, the state intervened to try and get the economy going again. This time, the is not on how to revive the economy, but how to further restrict it.

If the financial downturn proves to be intractable, “all bets are off,” says scholar Walter Scheidel.

Why do we fail in protecting our own people’s health and well-being while we squander more than a trillion dollars each year – with the assent of both Republicans and Democrats – on maintaining a failed and futile military empire across the world?