Is Venezuela on the Verge of a Social Explosion?

Marxist analyst Jorge Martin examines the causes, responses and solution to Venezuela’s current economic crisis.

Jorge Martin
By Jorge Martin
Demonstrators push police's shields as they protest Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro near the attorney generals office in Caracas, Venezuela, July 18, 2018. The previous night, former presidential candidate and opposition leader Henrique Capriles called on the country's political forces to reorganize in order to cope with the South American country's hyperinflation, and lack of food and medicine. Fernando Llano | AP

The aggravation of the economic crisis is making life unbearable for working people in Venezuela. The destruction of the purchasing power of wages has been combined with the collapse of all basic infrastructure (water, electricity and public transport). Workers in different sectors have started to organize and protest, demanding higher wages; while

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Trump Infrastructure Plan and Inequality: A Culture’s Road Ahead

Trump’s stingy infrastructure plan will merely deepen decay-promoting austerity policies by further shifting the responsibility for road and bridge repair from the federal government to the profit-driven private sector, and already-strapped state and local jurisdictions.

Jon Jeter
By Jon Jeter
President Donald Trump arrives to speak about infrastructure at the Department of Transportation, Friday, June 9, 2017, in Washington. (AP/Andrew Harnik)

INDIANAPOLIS – The morning commute in this landlocked Midwestern city is an obstacle course of potholes, buckled pavement, and shards of fugitive cement. Like infantrymen navigating a minefield, motorists swerve and stop, and zig and zag in rush hour traffic to avoid the peril from below. Drive east on Kessler Boulevard, however, and just past

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Trump Infrastructure Plan: Pay Tolls and Privatized Highways

$200 billion taken from other programs. Taxpayers borrow $800 billion plus interest. Then come tolls and user fees.

Steven Rosenfeld
By Steven Rosenfeld
President Donald Trump, accompanied by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, holds a flowchart of highway projects as he speaks to the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Aug. 15, 2017. (AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

As President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address Tuesday, pay close attention to his next big priority—an infrastructure plan—which, over time, could eclipse the trillion-dollar giveaway to the rich in the GOP’s just-passed tax plan. And track the response from Democrats, who will have to decide if they will back a plan

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Will The Saudi Arabia’s $40B Infrastructure Gift Influence Trump?

Saudi Arabia has promised to make $40 billion of its sovereign wealth fund available to the United States to bankroll part of the roughly $1 trillion in infrastructure improvements.

Zainab Calcuttawala
By Zainab Calcuttawala
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Tuesday, March 14, 2017, in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington. (AP/Evan Vucci)

It’s “Infrastructure Week” in Washington, and foreign powers are taking note. Ahead of President Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has promised to make $40 billion of its sovereign wealth fund available to the United States to bankroll part of the roughly $1 trillion in infrastructure improvements that Trump promised

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White House Eyeing $18 Billion List Of Budget Cuts Targeting Social Programs

The new list of cuts include $1.2 billion in National Institutes of Health research grants. The community development block grant program would be halved, amounting to a cut of $3 billion, and $500 million would be stripped from popular transportation project funding known as TIGER grants.

Associated Press
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The White House is following up its longshot roster of budget cuts with a wish list of $18 billion worth of immediate reductions, including cuts to medical research, infrastructure, and community development grants. Like President Donald Trump's 2018 budget, which was panned by both Democrats and Republicans earlier this month, the

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Legal Cannabis Is Literally Transforming Cities — Funding Roads, Schools, Charities And More

Colorado continues to provide an interesting experiment in the legalization of a plant that has been demonized by government for decades.

MintPress News Desk
By MintPress News Desk
Matthew Huron

Two years after Colorado began its first retail sales of cannabis, towns and cities across the state are enjoying the benefits in a number of ways. With sales this year expected to reach $1 billion, local governments are seeing windfalls of tax revenue, which is funding education, recreation, infrastructure improvements, and even aid to the

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