Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Robert Reich argues that U.S. corporations need to prioritize the health of their workers over immediate profits. But James Galbraith writes about the wider need to move past disaster capitalism, including through government action to take core economic decisions out of the hands of self-interested executives and capital owners.

- Meanwhile, Heather Vogell reports on the financial sector's latest inflation of asset values in order to justify making loans which could be securitized - this time in the commercial property sector rather than residential real estate.

- Melissa Perri and Naheed Dosani discuss how the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the plight of homeless people. But Juliana Nnoko-Memanu writes that the temporary relief offered initially may soon give way to a wave of people being pushed out of their homes by lenders.

- Anna North observes that employers are rushing to withdraw "hero pay" even while continuing to demand that their workers put themselves at risk.

- Finally, Devi Sridhar writes that a push to reopen businesses without a plan for testing and tracing will mean our efforts to contain COVID-19 to date will do nothing but delay mass infection. And Elizabeth Renzetti argues that masks will need to become the norm as part of any attempt to increase social activity.