Ruling Class

World’s Billionaires Have More Wealth Than 4.6 Billion People

January 22, 2020 Staff, Oxfamamerica.org Educate! Inequality, Ruling Class

There are more than two thousand billionaires in the world today and they have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet’s population, reveals a new report from Oxfam. The report is being launched as political and business elites, including President Trump, head to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week. The report, ‘Time to Care’, outlines how global inequality is shockingly entrenched and vast, with the number of billionaires having doubled in the last decade. The report also shows how our sexist economies are fuelling the inequality crisis...

People In US See Economy Is Rigged For The Wealthy

January 16, 2020 By Ruth Igielnik, Pewresearch.org Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Ruling Class

The notion that the U.S. economy is “rigged” to benefit the wealthy and special interests was a major rallying cry in the 2016 presidential election and is already resurfacing in the 2020 race. This message is likely to resonate with many Americans. Seven-in-ten U.S. adults say the economic system in their country unfairly favors powerful interests, compared with less than a third who say the system is generally fair to most Americans.

Two-Thirds Of People In The US Want To Tax The Rich

January 13, 2020 By Howard Schneider and Chris Kahn, Reuters.com Educate! Reform, Ruling Class, Taxes

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The idea of imposing a wealth tax on the richest Americans has elicited sharply divergent views across a spectrum of politicians, with President Donald Trump branding it socialist and progressive Democratic presidential contenders Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders prominently endorsing it. But it may have broad public support, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that found nearly two-thirds of respondents agree that the very rich should pay more.

Meet The CEOs Raking It In From Trump’s Aggression Toward Iran

January 8, 2020 By Sarah Anderson, Fpif.org Educate! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Iran, Middle East, Ruling Class, Trump Administration

CEOs of major U.S. military contractors stand to reap huge windfalls from the escalation of conflict with Iran. This was evident in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. assassination of a top Iranian military official last week. As soon as the news reached financial markets, these companies’ share prices spiked, inflating the value of their executives’ stock-based pay. I took a look at how the CEOs at the top five Pentagon contractors were affected by this surge, using the most recent SEC information on their stock holdings.

Ruling Class Bereft Of Answers While Catastrophic Fires Escalate Across Australia

January 6, 2020 James Cogan, Wsws.org Educate! Australia, Climate Change, Ruling Class, Wildfires

Catastrophic fire conditions exist today throughout much of Australia, from the southwest of Western Australia, across South Australia, to Victoria, the island state of Tasmania, and New South Wales (NSW), to the southeast of Queensland and areas of the tropical north. Another severe heat wave is moving across the continent, generating temperatures that may breach historical records that were broken only a few weeks ago. New fires are expected to ignite, while strong winds are predicted to fan the hundreds of blazes that are already burning.

World’s 500 Richest People Gained $1.2 Trillion In Wealth In 2019: Analysis

December 28, 2019 By Jake Johnson, Commondreams.org Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Ruling Class

The 500 richest people in the world, all of whom are billionaires, gained a combined $1.2 trillion in wealth in 2019, further exacerbating inequities that have not been seen since the late 1920s. That's according to a new Bloomberg analysis published Friday, which found that the planet's 500 richest people saw their collective net worth soar by 25 percent to $5.9 trillion over the last year. "In the U.S., the richest 0.1 percent control a bigger share of the pie than at any time since 1929," Bloomberg noted.

India’s Government Is Going To War Against Its Own People

December 19, 2019 By Vijay Prashad, Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Educate! Immigration, India, Nationalism, Ruling Class

On December 13, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights released a powerful statement that criticized India’s new citizenship law. This “fundamentally discriminatory” Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 would expedite citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from India’s neighboring countries. But in the list of those minorities, it names only Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians. It does not name Muslims, despite the fact that there have been several important cases of Muslims being persecuted in Pakistan (the Ahmadis), in Afghanistan (the Hazaras), and in Myanmar (the Rohingyas).

Ninety-One Profitable Fortune 500 Companies Paid $0.00 In Federal Income Taxes

December 18, 2019 Staff, Itep.org Educate! New Economy, Profit, Ruling Class, Taxes

This study provides a comprehensive overview of profitable corporations’ effective tax rates in 2018, the first year that companies were subject to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the tax law signed by President Donald Trump at the end of 2017. The law lowered the statutory federal corporate income tax rate to 21 percent (a 40 percent decrease from the previous 35 percent rate) and made other changes affecting what companies pay.

Tax Gap Of Silicon Six Over $100 Billion So Far This Decade

December 6, 2019 Staff, Fairtaxmark.net Educate! Corporations, Ruling Class, Taxes, Technology

The Fair Tax Mark will later this week release a new report, The Silicon Six and their $100 billion global tax gap, which examines the tax conduct of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google and Microsoft over the last decade. The report questions whether the companies, collectively referred to as the ‘Silicon Six’, are paying their way on tax. Together they have a combined market capitalization of $4.5 trillion and are worth more than the 1,000 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The U-Turn That Turned America Staggeringly Unequal

December 5, 2019 By Bob Lord, Inequality.org Educate! History, Inequality, Ruling Class

Wealth in America has concentrated — and dramatically so — over the past four decades. Since 1980, note wealth researchers Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the top 0.1 percent share of the nation’s total wealth has more than doubled, from under 10 percent in 1980 to over 20 percent today. In a nation of over 125 million households, just one ten-thousandth of those households — some 12,500 — now control over 10 percent of our wealth. But can numerical abstractions like these help us truly grasp the reality of the inequality that’s overtaken America? Or are these numbers too, well, abstract?

The New York Times’ Long History Of Endorsing US-Backed Coups

December 2, 2019 By Alan Macleod, Mintpressnews.com Educate! Media, New York Times (NYT), Regime Change, Ruling Class, US Imperialism

Bolivian President Evo Morales was overthrown in a U.S.-backed military coup d’état earlier this month after Bolivian army generals appeared on television demanding his resignation. As Morales fled to Mexico, the army appointed right-wing Senator Jeanine Añez as his successor. Añez, a Christian conservative who has described Bolivia’s indigenous majority as “satanic”, arrived at the presidential palace holding an oversized Bible, declaring that Christianity was re-entering the government. She immediately announced she would “take all measures necessary” to “pacify” the indigenous resistance to her takeover.

‘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.

How Does China Evaluate And Choose Its Leaders? Understanding China’s University System

November 26, 2019 By Larry Romanoff, Globalresearch.ca Educate! China, Government, Ruling Class

Few Westerners are aware that China also has a system of bar examinations which every graduate lawyer must pass in order to practice law in China. These are even more severe, requiring not only high intelligence but deep knowledge of the laws and a broad understanding of all matters legal, these exams being so difficult that many refuse to even attempt them. Of about 250,000 graduate lawyers who sit the exam, only about 20,000 will pass and obtain qualifications to actually practice law in China.

Claims That Wealth Taxes Slow Economic Growth Are Fundamentally Flawed

November 26, 2019 Josh Bivens, Epi.org Educate! Ruling Class, Taxes

In recent weeks, a number of policy analyses of progressive economic policies—a surtax on high-incomes, a wealth tax, and Social Security expansion—have claimed these policies would damage economic growth. Policymakers should give these analyses very little weight in debates about these issues, for a number of reasons. First, and most important, is the fact that all of these analyses are grounded in an economic view of the world that sees growth as constrained by the economy’s productive capacity (or the supply side of the economy) and not by the spending of households, businesses and government (the economy’s demand side).

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.

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