 I want to show you two separate headlines that, taken together, really put into perspective just how broken our system is. So on October 16th, NBC News reported 8 million Americans slipped into poverty amid coronavirus pandemic news studies says, researchers looked at the devastating financial effect the pandemic has had on Americans with blacks, Latinos and children fearing the worst. And then just four days later, on October 20th, Common Dreams reported billionaire wealth has surged by 931 billion dollars during seven months of the pandemic economic collapse. Now, before we dive into both of these articles, which we will, I just want to take some time to try to digest this information. This is astonishing. And it doesn't even make sense. It is the hallmark of society in decline. This is peak late stage capitalism, because theoretically speaking, if we are seeing an unprecedented crisis where we have both a global pandemic and an economic depression upon us simultaneously, you think that everyone would be affected equally. Because if poor people don't have money, if they have less purchasing power, then theoretically, if that economy functions appropriately, and as it should, then rich people should also be heard as well, because if poor people can't buy the things that capitalists produce, then of course, that's going to hurt them as well. But we're not seeing that. So something is off here. Something is really wrong here. And let me assure you, this is not a coincidence. These things are not unrelated. These are related. Capitalists and billionaires are getting richer precisely because the poor are getting poorer. This system is fundamentally broken. And with how bad it is, I don't even know if this is salvageable. Like how do you even craft structural reforms that fix all of the problems? Like it would take a really long time to actually do it and get it done. And there's going to be periods where we have reformers and revolutionaries not in power, and the reactionaries will come to power and try to undo the reforms that the reformists and revolutionaries put in place. So it's like we're playing whack-a-mole. And it just seems like everything is getting worse and worse as time goes on. But let's get to the specifics here, because as Jake Johnson of Common Dreams further explains, over just the past seven months, as millions lost their jobs in health insurance, tens of thousands of small businesses shuttered permanently, and more than 200,000 Americans were killed by the coronavirus, US billionaires saw their combined net worth surged by more than $930 billion, bringing the collective wealth of just 644 people to a staggering $3.88 trillion. That's according to an analysis released Tuesday morning by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, progressive organizations that have been tracking the explosion of billionaire wealth since the start of coronavirus lockdowns in mid-March. The new analysis shows that the collective wealth of America's billionaires grew by $931 billion, or nearly 33 percent between March 18th and October 13th, a period that also saw unprecedented job loss, a nationwide surge in hunger and a sharp increase in housing insecurity. The groups noted that the jump in billionaire wealth over the past seven months exceeds the size of both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's so-called skinny COVID-19 relief bill and the estimated two-year budget gaps of all state and local governments, which have been forced to lay off more than a million public sector workers due to revenue shortfalls caused by the coronavirus crisis. Sadly, the gilded ages here again, ATF Executive Director Frank Clemente said in a statement, we have extraordinary gains in wealth by a small sliver of the population, while millions suffer, this time from the ravages of the pandemic, much of which could have been avoided. Now let's try to put this timeline into perspective here. So between March 18th and October 13th, billionaires got a lot wealthier. All while the poorest have been suffering, more and more people have fallen into poverty. Now, the NBC News article by Stephen Sykes explains that even if the CARES Act was imperfect, in fact, I think it was really flawed, it contained a giant corporate giveaway. Even having said that, it did help a little bit. Not much, but a little bit. It didn't like stop poverty. You can say, arguably, it postponed people from falling into poverty. But now, if Congress doesn't take action and even do the bare minimum, things are going to get worse. So NBC News explains the number of Americans living in poverty grew by eight million since May, according to a Columbia University study, which found an increase in poverty rates after early coronavirus relief ended without more to follow, although the Federal CARES Act which gave Americans a one-time stimulus check of $1,200 and unemployed workers an extra 600 a week was successful at offsetting growing poverty rates. In the spring, the effects were short-lived. Researchers found in the study published Thursday. After aid diminished towards the end of summer, poverty rates, especially those among minorities and children, rebounded, they said. The CARES Act, despite its flaws, was broadly successful in preventing large increases in poverty, said Zach Perlin, a post-doctoral researcher at Columbia University and one of the study's authors. The Federal stimulus saved about 18 million Americans from poverty in April, he said. But as of September, that number is down to 4 million. So a one-time economic relief package can only go so far. And we're seeing it wear off. And now we're in the situation where who knows if they're going to get it done before the election, which means that it's not going to happen until February, which means that millions of Americans literally will suffer and fall into poverty because Congress is unable to act. It's just honestly, it's shocking that our country has responded in this way. And I'm not necessarily shocked at the response. I'm shocked at the lack of response, because what we see, and I've said this before, is a response that you'd expect from a failed state, not a developed country, the richest country in the world. And look, I'm no deficits gold. I subscribe to modern monetary theory, even though admittedly I'm still learning more about it. I'm reading Stephanie Kelton's book right now. But it's not like we only have, you know, a limited amount of resources. Even if you care about the deficit, you see the ticket right there. Billionaires collectively almost made a trillion dollars more just during this pandemic. Why aren't we taxing that? Why are they able to maximize profits when everyone else is suffering? The only reason why that happens is because our country does not function, our economic system is set up to do just that. So you know, when people talk about this story, they're probably going to say, look, capitalism isn't working, except I would argue it's working exactly as we'd expect it to work. Because when you get towards this late a stage of capitalism, this is exactly what starts to happen. You know, income inequality becomes so unsustainable, that society itself begins to collapse. Capitalism starts to eat itself. When you have so much resources in the hands of so few people, that's not sustainable at all. So I mean, I think that the story, it speaks for itself. It is insane that at a time when people are suffering, people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, the billionaire class is getting far richer than they ever had. Like the the economic crisis has been great for people like Jeff Bezos. How stunning is that?