Inequality

‘Ten Year Challenge’ For 400 Wealthiest Americans Shows Fortunes Doubled Since 2009 While Tax Rates Dropped

November 30, 2019 By Eoin Higgins, Nationofchange.org Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Ruling Class, Taxes

"Here's the thing: the way the system is set up, we're headed for another decade of this." Exemplifying a national economy rigged in favor of the already rich, the wealthiest 400 people in the U.S. enjoyed a drop in their tax rate from 2009 to 2019 even as they enjoyed a drop in their tax rate. University of Calfornia Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman—citing the social media meme known as the “ten year challenge“—crunched the numbers Sunday in a tweet, finding that the total wealth of the 400 richest Americans jumped from $1.27 trillion to $2.96 trillion. The tax rate fell from 27% to 23% in that time.

The US Is Not ‘Losing’ Its Democracy, It’s Already Long Gone

November 24, 2019 Richard Enos, Collective Revolution. Educate! Democracy, Inequality, oligarchy

The notion that citizens of the United States don’t actually live in a democracy has been picking up steam for decades, with scars from economic, social and political decay inflicting themselves ever more deeply into our psyches as the years move on. You would think that, with the rise of science and technology, we would have been able to build a far more prosperous nation. Instead, we have seen a vast reduction in our standard of living, and are being forced to work longer and harder in increasingly menial and unfulfilling jobs across the board. We are ever more being subjected to the control-hungry vicissitudes of mega-corporations that are swallowing up American entrepreneurship and prosperous self-employment.

Putting The Brakes On Corporate America’s Inequality Engine

November 21, 2019 By Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org Create! Corporate tax, Inequality, Ruling Class

Why has the United States become so much more unequal over the last four decades? Any number of factors have been driving our increased inequality. But no single factor may have been more significant than the behavior of the modern American corporation. Corporations are contributing to inequality on two fronts. On the one hand, they’re systematically depressing incomes for average Americans, via everything from outsourcing to pension cuts. On the other, they’re just as systematically stuffing the pockets of America’s executive class.

The Test Of A Country Is Not The Number Of Millionaires It Owns…

November 2, 2019 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Educate! Inequality, Iraq, Protests

At the edge of hope lies the gunfire from what Frantz Fanon called ‘the old granite block upon which the nation rests’. At the moment of protest, when the gunfire starts, clarity arrives. One should not be naïve about the character of the elite, whose smiles camouflage the instructions given through clenched teeth to the henchmen, their ‘simple men’ ready to kill the ‘simple people’. At its best, the ‘granite block’ shrugs, shuffles its cabinet, offers modest reforms; at its worst, its soldiers – their faces covered to prevent the tears from showing – fire at their family members.

Protests In Haiti: An Overlooked Crisis The World Should Not Ignore

November 1, 2019 Jaqueline Luqman, Therealnews.com Resist! Class Struggle, Haiti, Inequality, Protests

There have been protests occurring and growing in Haiti for over a year now. Widely dismissed as riots over fuel and food shortages, the unrest in Haiti is actually a response to much larger and deeper issues that cannot continue to be ignored. Here to talk with me about some of these issues is Keston Perry. Keston is a political economist with expertise in climate policy, finance, and global development, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. He has previously served as an external advisor to the United Nations Development Program. Thank you Keston so much for joining me today.

The Egalitarian Promise Of 1989—And Its Betrayal

November 1, 2019 Dimitrina Petrova, Dissentmagazine.org Strategize! Class Struggle, Europe, History, Inequality

The ideological victory of liberal democracy over communism shaped the way in which historians, politicians, and social scientists made sense of the events of 1989. But there is a strong case today for a revised look at the revolutions of 1989—a critique of the way the prevailing narratives and theories have presented these revolutions as essentially a transition from the tyranny of the party-state to a free and democratic society. A more complex picture of that momentous year reveals not only the eclipse of different possibilities...

How Much In ‘Inequality Tax’ Are You Paying?

October 29, 2019 By Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Taxes

What nation ranks as the world’s richest? A simple question to answer, right. Well, not so much, suggests the just-released tenth annual Global Wealth Report from the banking giant Credit Suisse. Everything turns out to depend on how we define “richest.” If we mean by “richest” the nation with the most total wealth, we have a clear worldwide number one: the United States. The 245 million adults who call the United States home held, as of this past June, a combined net worth of $106 trillion. No other nation comes close to that total. China ranks a distant second, with a mere $64 trillion, Japan even farther back at $25 trillion.

Lebanon’s ‘October Revolution’ Must Go On!

October 29, 2019 Rima Majed, Opendemocracy.net Resist! Austerity, Class Struggle, Inequality, Lebanon, Protests, Uprising

The ‘streets’ of Lebanon have exploded in massive protests since October 17th. Following months of austerity and dire economic conditions, a shortage of US dollars that caused a serious threat of devaluation of the Lebanese currency resulting in a potential crisis of gasoline and bread, the continuing power and water outages, and a catastrophic week with wildfires ravaging the country and exposing the ruling class, the government met on Thursday and agreed to impose new taxes on the people, including a tax on Whatsapp calls!

Can An Economic Stat Help Narrow Our Grand Economic Divide?

October 19, 2019 By Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org Strategize! Economics, Inequality, New Economy

Why do so many Americans deeply distrust government? One part of the reason, two top economists suggested to a key congressional committee this week, just might be the most basic — and familiar — of the economic statistics the federal government produces. That stat — gross domestic product, or GDP — “measures the market value of the goods, services, and structures produced by the nation’s economy,” as calculated by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis. The Bureau generates new GDP figures for every quarter of the year, and the release of these figures regularly makes headlines.

Inequality Is Literally Killing Us

October 12, 2019 By Sam Pizzigati, Otherwords.org Educate! Class Struggle, Inequality, Ruling Class

What do the folks at the U.S. Census Bureau do between the census they run every 10 years? All sorts of annual surveys, on everything from housing costs to retail sales. The most depressing of these — at least this century — may be the sampling that looks at the incomes average Americans are earning. The latest Census Bureau income stats, released in mid-September, show that most Americans are running on a treadmill, getting nowhere fast. The nation’s median households pocketed 2.3 percent fewer real dollars in 2018 than they earned in 2000.

400 Richest U.S. Families Paid Lower Tax Rate Than Working Class, Study Finds

October 12, 2019 Mary Papenfuss, Huffpost.com Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Ruling Class, Taxes

For the first time in a century, the nation’s richest billionaires are paying a lower tax rate than working-class Americans, according to an analysis in a forthcoming book. The wealthiest 400 families paid an average effective tax rate of 23% last year ― the second year of President Donald Trump’s new tax law ― while the bottom half of all American households paid an average rate of 24.2%, according to the study. The superwealthy paid a lower rate than any other income group, according to an analysis in the new book “The Triumph of Injustice,” by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley.

In Stockton, Early Clues Emerge About Impact Of Guaranteed Income

October 11, 2019 Sarah Holder, Citylab.com Create! Guaranteed income, Inequality, Wages

A totaled car. A mother with cancer. Two kids at home, with field trips and Quinceañera outfits and football gear to pay for. Rent bills of $1,250 due each month. Two jobs—one part-time—both paying around $15 an hour, supplemented by unpredictable child support payments. Lorrine Paradela used to lie awake at night, thinking through all her expenses and income streams, struggling to breathe from the stress of it all. Now, Paradela says, she’s started sleeping again.

The Wealthiest Americans Haven’t Paid Their Fair Share In Decades

October 9, 2019 Ilana Novack, Truthdig.com Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Ruling Class, Taxes

Donald Trump tried to sell America on his 2017 tax bill by calling it a middle class tax cut, and regurgitating Reagan-era talking points about how tax cuts for the wealthy actually benefit everyone. As Heather Long warns in The Washington Post however, while some middle class families got a modest cut in 2018, in 2019, millions of Americans were—or were about to be—“surprised to learn that their refunds will be less than expected or that they owe money to the Internal Revenue Service.”

Red-Green Alliance: A Green Earth With Peace And Room For Us All

October 9, 2019 Staff, Socialistproject.ca Strategize! Climate Change, Environment, Inequality

The world economy is characterized by major economic inequalities and by a production system that has already exceeded the limits of what is globally sustainable. Today we see upheaval and war, recurring deep economic crises, climate change, over-exploitation of resources, deep poverty, slavery, increasing inequality, authoritarian and undemocratic regimes, and gross human rights violations. At the same time, we are approaching an ecological disaster with lightning speed. The main reason is that the capitalist system is based on exploitation and repression. It is also the main obstacle to solving the world’s problems.

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