ByTeresa Ghilarducci, Senior Contributor. Teresa Ghilarducci Ph.D. is an Economics Professor.

While virtually everyone else has been struggling through the COVID-19 recession, billionaires have done well between March 18 and May 19. According to a report from the Institute for Policy Research and Americans for Tax Fairness, U.S. billionaires’ wealth grew by more than $400 billion over that period.

Consumer spending is down 7.6 percent in the first quarter of 2020 from the last quarter of 2019, but composition of consumer spending has changed. The demand for online shopping and news exploded Jeff Bezos’ wealth by over 30% to $148 billion (Bezos runs AmazonAMZN +1.7% and owns the Washington Post). His ex-wife’s wealth grew even more, by 33%. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, Michael Bloomberg, and some Walton heirs also have done well in the two months since the shutdown orders in the United States were put in place and an estimated 50 million Americans have lost their jobs.

Another odd phenomenon is that average workers’ pay actually increased in April, with average weekly earnings rising from $804 a week to $842. This is odd because wages and salaries usually fall or remain stagnant when there is surplus labor, and in March and April there were more people looking for work than jobs available.

The reason for the increase in average pay: low-income workers disproportionately lost their jobs and high-income workers kept theirs. In April, the low-paid leisure and hospitality sector lost half of its employment. Meanwhile, the finance sector lost hardly any jobs. High-income workers are usually a bit more secure in recessions. But economies are interdependent and in the last recession high-paid workers, especially those in finance, lost their jobs.

In this recession, the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s, high-income workers are more likely to keep their jobs and billionaires are seeing their fortunes grow. In short, the COVID-19 recession is causing more inequality. Even Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell felt compelled to point out the growing inequality. As the Fed noted in May, 40% of those earning under $40,000 will lose their jobs in the COVID-19 recession.

The wealthy are always more likely to win in recessions, as NYU economist Edward Wolff has found. During recessions, wealth and income inequality grows. And as economist Hilary Hoynes and others have discovered, poor and indebted households are affected much more by business cycles. Future research will likely find similar effects from the COVID-19 recession.

Another awful and quite pronounced effect of this recession is how it will worsen gaps in mortality. Longevity inequality was already growing before the pandemic because of the uneven access to health care, health care disparities, and unequal access to healthful living places with fresh air, fresh food, and walkable places. Those most at risk of dying early are also those more severely affected by this recession, due to the effect of the virus on those with diabetes and other co-morbidities.

The winners in all recessions are the people who keep their jobs and hours, can work at home, and those with excess cash and wealth to snap up what owners needing cash sell: lower-priced small business, lower-priced stocks and bonds, and perhaps even a lower-priced house or two. The COVID-19 recession will cause more wealth, income, and health inequality.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

So Felon 47 has gone 100% Kremlin… Our current administration signed on with Belarus, North Korea, and Russia condemning Ukraine for Russia’s invasion of its sovereign country. Yesterday in the oval office, Trump belittled the duly elected president of Ukraine pretty much telling him that we are not on his side, and we will not help him, his option is surrender. When did we start siding with the invaders and no those that are fighting to defend their country?

The King Donald version of the Bible and Constitution is Fuck the Poor and needy, expel the stranger, oh and by the way if you happen to have $5millions our doors are open. This is not the nation and its values I was raised in and I am very sad for our future if this is the path we are on.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The unelected South African that has been given carte blanche to dismantle our government needs to be sent back to where he came from. The majority of us have zero impact on this maniac but continuing to disparage Tesla by calling the cars SwastaCars and the CyberTruck the DouchePanzer is a start.

Canada stated a petition to remove Musk Canadian citizenship, even though he is not a Canadian citizen, it sends a message that they want nothing to do with this Bond Villain.

We are letting 2 trust fund fools cut funds from government agencies like hedge fund managers dismantling their latest acquisition. Donny who bankrupted multiple companies to include Casinos and Elon who bought Twitter for $44 billion and the platform is now worth $7 billion… amazing if they want to run government like a business the mission must be total destruction. Crazy that with all the waste and fraud DOGE is supposedly finding none of it is in the billion dollar contracts that Elon has… I am sure the is no conflict of interest there…

Send the South African apartheid trust fund baby back to South Africa.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

We have yet to see enough pushback by the members of Congress. The republican side seems to think that the idea of calling Trump out is that he will get the money to see to it that you do not get reelected. Continue as you are and the chances are you will be eliminated and that will give you no place to go. Say what you want but chances are as everything is turned over to his nibbs your job opportunities will get less and less as the government dries up and downsizes. Your job is in danger because you are there to govern and when you are no long there or the job is no long there then where do you suppose that leaves you? It is sad to say but even an idiot should be able to see this coming. Trump and Musk are dead set on destroying everything that gets between them and personal gain, so the members of Congress are an inconvienent bump in the road. One man rule is pretty much what he is shooting for and if you do not stop him he will achieve that goal very quickly. The cabinet picks you people have put in place are going to do as they are told, and it seems that members of the republican party seem to think they will stay safe as long as they do as they are told. Look at the cuts that have been made so far, no one is exempt from the chopping block. Nothing has stopped him from getting rid of programs and agencies that help people, red state or blue state, no difference that has not saved much. Wake up and smell the coffee before it is too late. The police nor the military owe him loyalty. Sure there are some that will follow but if the military follows the rule of the UCMJ then they do not have to obey orders from someone that is drunk, or mentally ill, and sick in the head is what sits in the WH. Between the Supreme Court granting immunity and the unvetted headhunter that is working with him, Trump has beecome the worst, most dangerous, and stupidest person to ever occupy the highest office in the land. His first term in office was fueled by the fact that he wasn't in politics and he was running against a woman. The belief that someone that knows nothing about the inner workings of government is qualified to run the nation is flawed just as is the belief that a woman, even one that has been in politics, is not capable of doing the job. Both are stupid points of view. The Trump administration is proving that stupid people in jobs they are not knowledgeable of is a bad move, look at all the crap that is going on with the cabinet selections. Then we have the supposed money saving of cutting or gutting various agencies and programs so that we can give rich people more money. One of the rich people that wants more money is Trump in the form of the government paying for his legal fees because he keeps being sued for being stupid. Again it is amazing to me that any person that took an oath to the Constitution would willingly work for this administration, they should be doing everything they can to dismantle it. The first time Trump was elected people went crazy with having to fight to keep or reenstate programs that were on his chopping block, and they did not listen to his speeches or they would have been aware that all this was going to happen. The fact that he now has made comments to the effect that they cheated to win does not help the current situation except to highlight the danger of doing the same stupid thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. The current state of the world has caused the majority of us to realize that if we are looking for the best in people we will be disappointed more often than not, and we do not have to hunt for the worst in people because that confronts us at every turn. Morgan Freeman made a comment on an interview that we can choose our course be either looking for fear or looking for faith, he chooses faith, what is your choice?

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The House Trumpulicans have passed the blueprint for their budget. This plan has put everything that helps Americans that make less than 7 figures on the menu and will do nothing to reduce our debt or deficit.

If you can’t pay for private school for your kids, or for nursing care for elderly parents or even for your own medicine… well that’s just too bad because the ultra wealthy need another tax cut. Don’t be fooled if you have to work you will still be paying taxes but chances are you will not see one benefit… roads will crumble and planes will crash because that budget has been cut. More fentanyl will cross the boarder because USAID that helped control the raw materials needed for the drug have been removed .

Let’s just go back to the world or Oliver Twist, where roaming gangs of children will pick pockets so they can eat…. Thanks Donald and your Trumpubicans for making America Weak and Hated, just what our founders hoped would happen 😢

You don’t need to have a complete understanding of exactly how hieroglyphs function amid the rules of grammar in order to find them fascinating, though. Many symbols represent items that in turn provide glimpses into life in ancient Egypt and its advanced state as a civilization. The following hieroglyphs do just that — and we’ll use the names and reference points from Gardiner’s list to help illuminate them.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics have long captured the imaginations of scholars and casual observers alike, and efforts to translate them date back to the ninth century CE. Yet hieroglyphics remained mostly indecipherable until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799. Early progress was made by English polymath Thomas Young in the 1810s, and French linguist Jean-François Champollion completed a breakthrough translation that he presented in Paris on September 27, 1822. 

The accuracy of Champollion’s translation was a watershed moment that enabled a greater understanding of hieroglyphs, leading to deeper and wider-ranging study. In 1927, English Egyptologist Alan Gardiner published the reference work Egyptian Grammar, which included an appendix compiling the major hieroglyphs and their meanings, known as Gardiner’s Sign List, a reference standard still used today.

You don’t need to have a complete understanding of exactly how hieroglyphs function amid the rules of grammar in order to find them fascinating, though. Many symbols represent items that in turn provide glimpses into life in ancient Egypt and its advanced state as a civilization. The following hieroglyphs do just that — and we’ll use the names and reference points from Gardiner’s list to help illuminate them.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

Let us address the layoffs that are taking place. This is all about saving money, federal money, so that it can be redirected into the pockets of people that have so much now they don't know what to do with it. The effort may save on salaries but it will not save on unemployment, and if they were government workers the federal govenment gets billed for the unemployment. The next thing that will happen is that these folks may have to default on home loans. This will create problems in the banking industry and as usual the bankers will come back to the fed and ask for a bail out. All of these actions ultimately cost money in one form or another and all of it will come home to roost on the Trump administration. How utterly stupid do you have to be to think this is a good idea, like tariffs it has consequences that get worse not better. Cancelling programs that feed people, here or elsewhere is not only stupid it is in humane. We are talking about the party that does not want a woman to have an abortion, but once the child is born they are on their own. All this nonsense to make Musk wealthier or Trump wealthier, and there is no reason for it. If Trump wants more money all he has to do is take it away from Musk. The courts are getting challenged by Trump as to what are they going to do to enforce any ruling that they have made as he is determined to disobey the order. On top of that the DOJ is aligned with Trump so there is no recouse in that direction to get the marshalls to do the job they are required to do. Other nations have recourse when they feel that the policies or the leaders of the party in power have gone too far and that is to have an emergency election. Is the plan to eliminate the judges and all cases brought will be heard by himself? Not much else is going to get done other than exstract vengence on all that are enemies of the great one. It is just amazing that all the members of Congress and all the justices on the Supreme Court have not tumbled to the obvious fact that if they just sit on it they to will become redundant and no longer needed. When it reaches that point for them rather than just telling them they are fired they may face the fate of Salins generals or those that oppose his nibs in North Korea, firing squad. If any members of this administration should read this, consider your options carefully. At present if you feel threatened you can ask for police protection, maybe not in DC but send the family home and the local police will take over. Once you reach the point of uselessness that is rapidly approaching there will be no place to run to. Don't believe it, read the history of the rise of dictators in any nation. Congress is just about at a point of hang together and do something to save the nation and your respective asses or hang separately as your usefullness comes to an end. Check 2025 it may be outlined in there somewhere, only the hardcore ass kissers are going to survive. Anyone deemed and enemy or someone that has the potential to unseat him or do him harm is going to be a target, and that probably includes some of the rich as well because at some point he is going to start taking it from them as well, he does want to be the riches does he not?

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

This is getting to the point of insanity… The wealthiest man in the world is rooting out waste in the US Government, crazy that all the waste and fraud are in agencies that are only there to help that have the least. Departments that historically are riddled with waste are not even being looked at.

We now have an FBI director that published a book about going after those who slighted the current occupant of the oval offices… by name. The Attorney General is specifically looking into those who investigated Jan 6 and erasing video footage of the violence from that day.

Donny is telling Governors that if they do abide by his executive orders that federal funding will be cut from their state because he is the law.

Only a month has passed, when will more people realize that this isn’t making us great… only a month and we are already despised on the world stage… MAGA is a bad joke, a bad joke that keeps being told .

You can have cells from more than one person in your body.

In Greek mythology, a chimera is a part-lion, part-goat, part-snake, all-weird monstrosity, but in scientific circles, the name takes on a different meaning. In biology, a chimera is anyone whose body contains genetically distinct cells. This doesn’t mean that another small organism is living within you, but rather that cells wholly different from your cells coexist within you. In fact, a kind of chimerism is fairly common. New mothers carry some of the cells of their offspring, which can remain within their body for up to 40 years. This exchange of cells is also a two-way street, as children often contain some of their mother’s cells, which cross the placenta and into the child’s bloodstream during pregnancy. However, not many cells reside in a mother and her offspring, so scientists refer to this phenomenon as “microchimerism.” 

A more dramatic form of human chimerism is when two embryos that would usually form nonidentical twins instead fuse in the womb, and the resulting single embryo contains cells of both. While this can have some outward effects (like different-colored patches of skin on one person), most of the time this condition is only discovered through genetic testing. In one bizarre case in 2003, a 52-year-old mother needed a kidney transplant, and when her children were tested for compatibility, the results showed that two of her three children were not hers genetically. This is because she was a chimera, having fused with her twin embryo before birth, and the doctors didn’t think to search for a second genetic marker in other parts of her body. That makes this confused mother only 1 out of 100 or so confirmed chimera cases worldwide, but many, many more are likely out there.