Damascus-Sana
At a time when most Americans suffer from losing their jobs and millions of poor people are trying to secure their basic needs of food and livelihoods through aid requests, etc. Isolation measures taken to historical shock to the American economy.
The wealthy of America turned the health and economic crises resulting from the outbreak of the Corona virus in the United States to their advantage, so they added, according to a report published by the British Guardian newspaper, $ 308 billion to their fortunes during the past four weeks only and they were the first to benefit from the financial aid package approved by the US administration to revitalize the economy while waiting In it, most Americans who lost their jobs receive a small sum that may not be sufficient for them to purchase their basic needs.
The wealthy class, which makes up one percent of American society, found in the epidemic crisis a golden opportunity to double its profits, taking advantage of the economic consequences of the virus. Some of the rich in the United States were among the first to receive financial aid that forced the American administration to grant it in an attempt to repair the damage it caused as a result Its failure to deal with the virus.
A report prepared by the American Institute of Political Studies IPS and published by the Guardian showed that the wealth of the richest in the United States grew from 18 March to 22 April, by more than 10 percent, while the value of the fortunes of eight of these rich people increased sharply by One billion dollars each, including Amazon president Jeff Bezos, president of Zoom Video Communications Corporation Erik Yuan, former head of Microsoft Steve Bulmer and others.
The report indicated that a number of these wealthy people exploited loopholes in the government rescue plan approved by Congress in the amount of 349 billion dollars with the aim of assisting the most affected small business projects. Banks were among the biggest beneficiaries of this money, as they reaped nearly 10 billion dollars through fees they charge on Government loans.
For his part, Chuck Collins, official in the Institute for the Prevention of Inequality at the Institute for Political Studies and co-author of the report, affirmed that Corona’s epidemic has exposed more fault lines in the American political entity, and these cracks have been widening for decades between the really rich and the rest of the people.
As the situation gets worse for Latin Americans and African Americans, the gap in salaries widens between what white Americans charge and their black citizens ’wages at a time when 26.5 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits since mid-March.
Kevin Hassett, the White House economic advisor, confirmed yesterday that the closure of the US economy due to the Corona virus pandemic represents a shock of historical proportions that is likely to push the unemployment rate at the national level to 16 percent or more this month and require more incentives to ensure a strong recovery.
"I think this is the biggest negative shock that our economy has experienced so far, and we will see an unemployment rate approaching the rates that we witnessed during the Great Depression in the thirties of the last century, describing it as a serious matter," Hassett said in statements to ABC TV. To curb the spread of the new Corona virus, it has hurt the American economy and the change in gross domestic product in the second quarter of this year will be a negative number.
Like the financial and health crises that preceded it, it appears that the Corona virus opened a new door to wealth for the elite class in the United States, which found an unparalleled opportunity to make profits through trading in medical equipment and anti-virus real estate on the one hand and seizing government financial aid that is supposed to reach those affected by Small business owners or limited income on the other hand.
Basem Kanoon