 We live in a late-stage capitalist society, so we already know that, you know, it's unsurprising when we see stories about the rich getting richer during a pandemic. It's unsurprising to see that large multinational corporations are making record profits during a pandemic as they lay off thousands of workers. But a new report by The Washington Post really gives us a sense of the scale of this issue and how disgusting the greed of corporate America is. And it's truly, it's shocking like it's worse than I thought. Now, I'm going to link you to the article from The Washington Post down below, but I'm actually going to read you a summary from Common Dreams, because we don't have enough time to get through the full article of The Washington Post, even though I would highly recommend that you read that. But let's get to the summary. So this is from Kenny Stansel of Common Dreams who reports, while the COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding economic crisis have made 2020 a devastating year for the vast majority of people throughout the United States, most of the country's biggest companies have prospered only to hand a larger chunk of profits to shareholders while firing thousands of workers. An in-depth investigation published Wednesday by The Washington Post illuminates how big businesses are having a very different year from most of the country, which is suffering as a result of the federal government's negligent response to the ongoing public health catastrophe and inadequate provision of financial assistance to working-class households. This is a global crisis, but the big companies are not treating it as one. They haven't skipped a beat, said William Lasonic, an emeritus economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. The Post shared examples of the surprisingly upbeat outlook shared by executives at some of America's largest corporations. I don't think we've ever been more excited or energized about our prospects, PayPal finance chief John Rainey said on a November conference call. These are times when the strong could get stronger Nike chief John Donahoe told analysts in September. According to the newspaper's analysis, 45 of the 50 most highly valued U.S. companies have turned a profit in 2020, despite their financial success, 27 of those firms cut staff this year, laying off more than 100,000 workers in the midst of an intertwined health and economic emergency. Instead of using the wealth produced by workers to keep employees on payroll, corporations put Americans out of work and used their profits to increase the wealth of shareholders the Post found. So I don't think that the average American, assuming they know that corporate greed is a thing, even knows that it's this bad. Like I don't think that they realize that laying off employees as a means of raising shareholder value is what they do. And it's a common phenomenon, like it's not necessarily exclusive to this year. This is what they always do. But it's just particularly disgusting when we see people lining up for miles, waiting for hours to get a box of food on Thanksgiving, when we see 14 million households and 19 million individuals face eviction come January. Now, I do want to share a graphic that the Washington Post created, because I think this is really, really interesting. So as you can see, there's two main categories here, companies that were not profitable, such as Disney and Boeing, and companies that were profitable like Comcast, Walmart, and Microsoft. And as you can see, even if they were still profitable, they laid off hundreds, if not thousands of employees in spite of said profitability. They don't care about their employees. They have one goal, and that is to boost profits. They have a fiduciary responsibility to increase shareholder value, and they will do that, regardless of the cost. If that means throwing their own under the bus, throwing the very people whose labor they exploit, who make them rich, under the bus, they're going to do it. Because corporations are amoral. Their actions are absolutely unethical and immoral, but these are amoral actors. I mean, if this wasn't the case, Amazon wouldn't be working their employees so hard that they're forced to piss in bottles in order to be productive and meet the goals set out by management. It's not surprising. None of this should surprise you if you've been paying attention, but that doesn't mean that because we're desensitized to these sorts of stories, we should lose our sense of outrage because this is something that is a common phenomenon in dystopian, late-stage capitalist societies. And this isn't just going to change because one day these large corporations have an epiphany and think maybe we should treat our workers better. You have to force them. It's sad, but again, not surprising in the slightest.