The The Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Just one

guest today, a familiar presence on Behind the News, the Economist and

former Greek Finance Minister Janus Verafakis.

Well, talk about life under COVID-19, the class fishers it exposes so literally the

insane austerity politics that dominate the EU.

Vulture investors stripping bear are still broke Greece and the Democracy in Europe

movement's plan for reviving that continent. First a few notes in the present

crisis. On Thursday morning the Labor Department announced that 5.2 million people

applied for unemployment benefits in the week ending April 11. That's down by over a

million from the previous week but is still fiendishly high. Before this

crisis hit something like 220,000 people a week were applying.

Over the last four weeks, 22 million people have filed applications, and that is of April 4th, 12 million were drawing benefits.

That's up almost sevenfold from a month earlier.

The numbers suggest that when the April jobs report is released on May 8th, the

unemployment rate will be 15% or higher. It was under 4% in February. It took about two years after the

1929 stock market crash to reach 15% unemployment, where compressing that trajectory into two

months.

Congress may have passed a $2 trillion rescue package,

but the thing is way too heavy with aid to big business

and way too light with assistance to people

and to hospitals which are laying off people in the midst of a health crisis and to state and local governments which are on the verge of savage cuts.

Over the longer term, we need a green new deal more than ever to get a handle on climate change, rebuild our collapsing infrastructure,

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