Inequality

Sonoma County Says ‘No’ To Walmart

July 19, 2014 Martin J. Bennett, www.beyondchron.org Resist! Inequality, Resistance, Walmart

Wal-Mart has again submitted a proposal to expand its existing discount store in Rohnert Park into a supercenter, selling both general merchandise and groceries. In 2010, widespread organized opposition across Sonoma County and a successful lawsuit derailed the project. Much has changed since Wal-Mart first proposed a supercenter five years ago in Rohnert Park–and the ongoing campaign by a broad coalition of labor, faith, environmental, and community-based organizations to oppose the project has implications for the entire state, if not the nation. For the past five quarters Wal-Mart has experienced falling sales. The retail giant is desperate to expand its market share in large metropolitan regions like the greater San Francisco Bay area. To penetrate metro regions Wal-Mart seeks to increase both the number of supercenters with groceries and to construct 40,000-square-foot ‘Neighborhood’ grocery stores—as Wal-Mart’s grocery sales climbed from 7 percent nationwide in 2002 to 18 percent in 2011. Hence, in addition to proposing the first supercenter in the North Bay (i.e. Marin and Sonoma counties), Wal-Mart is building a ‘small mart’ grocery store in Rohnert Park, also the first in the two counties.

A New Game Plan For Taking Down Privatizers

July 16, 2014 Sam Pizzigati, www.nationofchange.org Educate! Corruption, Inequality, Politics, Privatization

Analysts at the OECD, the Paris-based economic research agency, have just shared a grim prediction: If current trends “prevail,” all developed nations will show by 2060 “the same level of inequality as currently experienced by the United States.” If we let those current trends continue, that conclusion sounds about right. But why on earthshould we let those trends continue? The trends that have made our world so unequal don’t reflect some inevitable unfolding of globalization. They reflect wrong-headed political decisions. We can make different decisions. Take privatization. Over the past four decades, governments all around the world have chosen to privatize a broad array of public services. These privatizations have generated vast new concentrations of private wealth, among them the $75 billion fortune of Carlos Slim, the world’s second-richest single individual.

Donors To Elite Institutions Exacerbate Wealth Gap

July 15, 2014 Pablo Eisenberg, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Inequality, Philanthropy, Poverty

Most Americans probably think a major goal of philanthropy is to fight poverty. But a closer look reveals that giving by foundations and philanthropists exacerbates wealth inequality in the United States. Look at some of the trends: Thousands of local fundraising groups have been created to raise private money for public schools--and almost all of them channel resources primarily to schools attended by the children of people who live in affluent neighborhoods. Elite colleges and universities are the major beneficiaries of multimillion-dollar gifts, and its those kinds of donations that are a key reason giving to higher education grew 9 percent last year. Yet these institutions are so high-priced, few low-income and working-class students can afford to attend. Arts institutions saw donations soar in the past year, according to "Giving USA," also because of donations by the wealthy. Most of the institutions that benefit from the bulk of private donations are established institutions that cater to the upper and middle classes. Meanwhile, "Giving USA" showed much smaller gains for social-service groups and other kinds of organizations that raise money primarily from people who aren't multibillionaires.

Another World: Film About Grassroots In Greece

July 15, 2014 Films For Action, www.filmsforaction.org Organize! Arts, Finance and the Economy, Greece, Inequality

"Another World" is a film about the grassroots initiatives in Greece that form another world right here and now, away from the crisis and beyond capitalism (Greek narration, English subtitles in captions). We live in an upside world. Right now in the planet there is a unjust distribution and accumulation of wealth, inflation of social injustice, restriction of basic rights and freedom, and an unprecedented depletion of natural resources. Although global GDP has quintupled since 1980, the gap between rich and poor is expanding, while also the number of people living below the poverty line constantly increases. 1% of the richest in the world holds 40% of the world productive resources, while the richest 10% owns more than 85% of global wealth. The constant economic growth of the past decades with emphasis on dirty carbon economy, proved to be unsustainable since intensified inequalities, reduced the living standard destroyed natural resources and finally transformed itself into an underdevelopment disconnected from social welfare.

Global South Calls For Respect Of Sovereignty & Economic Justice

July 15, 2014 Staff, www.g77.org Organize! Democracy, Environment, Inequality, Poverty, Racism, Sovereignty, wealth inequality

1. We, the Heads of State and Government of the member States of the Group of 77 and China, have gathered in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Plurinational State of Bolivia, for the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Group. 2. We commemorate the formation of the Group of 77 on 15 June 1964 and recall the ideals and principles contained in the historic Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Developing Countries, signed at the end of the first session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), held in Geneva. 3. We recall that the first ever statement of the Group of 77 pledged to promote equality in the international economic and social order and promote the interests of the developing world, declared their unity under a common interest and defined the Group as “an instrument for enlarging the area of cooperative endeavour in the international field and for securing mutually beneficent relationships with the rest of the world”.

Why Did Obama Really Stop Talking About Inequality?

July 12, 2014 Peter Hart, www.fair.org Educate! Barack Obama, Democrats, Inequality, Wall Street

The Washington Post's Zachary Goldfarb reported on July 4 that Barack Obama has stopped talking much about inequality. But instead of explaining why this is happening, the Post frames the issue as a debate between left-leaning populists and "moderate" Democrats trying to avoid "class warfare." The piece leads off with this: After making fighting income inequality an early focus of his second term, President Obama has largely abandoned talk of the subject this election year in a move that highlights the emerging debate within the Democratic Party over economic populism and its limits. Goldfarb adds that Obama has "shifted from income inequality to the more politically palatable theme of lifting the middle class," framing the decision as a clash of ideas: The shift also underscores the ongoing dispute between the Democratic Party's liberal and moderate wings over how to address inequality issues. Whereas the left takes a more combative tone, seeking to focus on the income gap and what it views as the harmful influence of big business and Wall Street, more centrist forces in the party favor an emphasis on less-divisive issues.

Thousands Rally Across Australia

July 8, 2014 Lucinda Kent, www.abc.net.au Resist! Austerity, Australia, Budget, Inequality, Labor

Thousands of people have attended rallies across Australia to protest the Abbott Government's first budget. Large Bust the Budget protests were held in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Darwin. Smaller rallies took place in regional areas including Lismore in New South Wales, and Wodonga in Victoria. Union groups including the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) marched at the protests. ACTU secretary Dave Oliver says a wide range of people, including families, students, retirees and pensioners, were marching to send a strong message to the Government. "This budget is going to hit the most vulnerable in our society," he said. "What this budget is doing is sending our country down the same path to where the United States is today ... they have a country that is divided by a nation of haves and have-nots."

World’s Wealthiest Worries About Global Unrest

July 5, 2014 Andrew Gavin Marshall, www.occupy.com Resist! Davos, Inequality, Mass Movement

As an annual gathering of thousands of leading financial, corporate, political and social oligarchs in Davos, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has taken a keen interest in recent years discussing the potential for social upheaval as a result of mass inequality and poverty. A WEF report released in November of 2013 warned that a “lost generation” of unemployed youth in Europe could potentially pull the Eurozone apart. One of the report's authors, the CEO of Infosys, commented that “unless we address chronic joblessness we will see an escalation in social unrest,” noting that youth especially “need to be productively employed, or we will witness rising crime rates, stagnating economies and the deterioration of our social fabric.” The report added: “A generation that starts its career in complete hopelessness will be more prone to populist politics and will lack the fundamental skills that one develops early on in their career.” In short, if the global ruling class – known affectionately as the Davos Class – doesn't quickly find ways to accommodate the continent's increasingly unemployed and “lost” youth, those people will potentially turn to “populist politics” of resistance that directly challenge the global political and economic order. For the individuals and interests represented at the World Social Forum, this poses a monumental and, increasingly, an existential threat.

Clinton Global Initiative For Rigged Corporate Trade

July 3, 2014 Michele Swenson, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Free Trade Agreements, Hillary Clinton, Inequality, NAFTA, TPP

NAFTA promoters in the '90s promised increased U.S. exports and jobs, with shrinking trade deficits. Senior Fellows of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), projected a NAFTA-induced trade surplus with Mexico, in turn, creating 170,000 new U.S. jobs by 1995. Within two years of NAFTA's passage, PIIE prognosticators readjusted their projection of new NAFTA-created jobs downward to "zero." The same group, created by billionaire corporate cheerleader Pete Peterson, is again forecasting increased exports and jobs if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is passed. Referencing 19 serious pre-NAFTA economic studies projecting zero net job loss if NAFTA were to pass, President Bill Clinton estimated the creation of 200,000 U.S. jobs within two years, and 1 million within five years, based on a projected export boom to Mexico. Twenty years after Clinton signed NAFTA into law, Global Trade Watch reports a 450 percent increase in the U.S. trade deficit, resulting in the export of almost one million jobs, and downward pressure on wages. In fact, the average annual U.S. agricultural trade deficit with Mexico and Canada ballooned to almost three times the pre-NAFTA level, to $975 million within two decades of NAFTA's passage, eliminating an estimated one million net U.S. jobs by 2004, reports the Economic Policy Institute.

Inequality Is Not Inevitable

June 30, 2014 Joseph E. Stiglitz, www.opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com Educate! Bankers, Capitalism, Corporatism, Inequality, Money As Speech, Politics

AN insidious trend has developed over this past third of a century. A country that experienced shared growth after World War II began to tear apart, so much so that when the Great Recession hit in late 2007, one could no longer ignore the fissures that had come to define the American economic landscape. How did this “shining city on a hill” become the advanced country with the greatest level of inequality? One stream of the extraordinary discussion set in motion by Thomas Piketty’s timely, important book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” has settled on the idea that violent extremes of wealth and income are inherent to capitalism. In this scheme, we should view the decades after World War II — a period of rapidly falling inequality — as an aberration. This is actually a superficial reading of Mr. Piketty’s work, which provides an institutional context for understanding the deepening of inequality over time. Unfortunately, that part of his analysis received somewhat less attention than the more fatalistic-seeming aspects.

World Of Resistance Report: Inequality, Injustice And The Coming Unrest

June 29, 2014 Andrew Gavin Marshall, www.occupy.com Strategize! Democracy, Inequality, oligarchy, Poverty, Unrest

In Part 1 of the World of Resistance (WoR) Report, I examined today's global order – or disorder – through the eyes of Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National Security Adviser and long-time influential figure in foreign policy circles. Brzezinski articulated what he refers to as humanity's "global political awakening," spurred by access to education, technology and communications among much of the world’s population. Brzezinski has written and spoken extensively to elites at American and Western think tanks and journals, warning that this awakening poses the “central challenge” for the U.S. and other powerful countries, explaining that “most people know what is generally going on... in the world, and are consciously aware of global iniquities, inequalities, lack of respect, exploitation.” Mankind, Brzezinski said in a 2010 speech, “is now politically awakened and stirring.” But Brzezinski is hardly the only figure warning elites and elite institutions about the characteristics and challenges of an awakened humanity. The subject of inequality – raised to the central stage by the Occupy movement – has become a fundamental feature in the global social, political and economic discussion, as people become increasingly aware of the facts underlying the stark division between the haves and have nots.

ACLU Report: US Government’s Role In Creating “Paramilitary Police”

June 29, 2014 Andre Damon, www.wsws.org Educate! ACLU, Democracy, Inequality, Police, Wars and Militarism

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released an extensive report Monday on the militarization of the police in the US, showing that the “federal government has justified and encouraged the militarization of local law enforcement.” The report, entitled War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, shows that the federal government has spent billions of dollars arming local police forces with military-grade weapons and encouraged their use in day-to-day policing. The report focuses on the increasing use of so-called Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) forces to take over the role of ordinary police forces. These units are, in the words of their creator, former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, “quasi-militaristic” outfits. SWAT teams have been deployed throughout the US to carry out such tasks as serving search warrants related to non-violent crimes. These raids proceed like the house-to-house searches made infamous during the US invasion of Iraq, involving police in military battledress throwing stun grenades, pointing automatic rifles at people, wantonly damaging property, killing animals, and gunning down anyone who actively resists.

The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats

June 28, 2014 Nick Hanauer, www.politico.com Educate! Capitalism, Future, Inequality, Poverty

You probably don’t know me, but like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries—from itsy-bitsy ones like the night club I started in my 20s to giant ones like Amazon.com, for which I was the first nonfamily investor. Then I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I’m no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can’t even imagine. Multiple homes, my own plane, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about. In 1992, I was selling pillows made by my family’s business, Pacific Coast Feather Co., to retail stores across the country, and the Internet was a clunky novelty to which one hooked up with a loud squawk at 300 baud.

As Good As It Gets? Hard Lessons From NYC Contracts

June 27, 2014 Mark Brenner, www.labornotes.org Educate! Inequality, Labor, New York City (NYC), Taxes, Unions

New York City teachers and transit workers just ratified contracts that will define what’s possible for the 250,000 city workers still in negotiations. The deals show how little juice is left for public sector unions trying to deliver using traditional tools at the bargaining table or in the political arena. If these are the limits in a union stronghold like New York—where one in four workers is a union member and 70 percent of the public sector is organized—the news isn’t good for conventional strategies elsewhere. What can be done better? To avoid a collision course with taxpayers, public sector unions need to upend the bipartisan consensus and put raising taxes back on the table. To achieve that, they’ll have to make an aggressive case to voters that strong public services, and the workers who provide them, are worth it—and that corporations and the super-rich should pay the tab. They’ll also have to challenge politicians, especially Democrats, who’ve made their peace with austerity.

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