wealth inequality

How We Can Make The Economy Work For All Stakeholders

August 21, 2018 By Tom Burgess, Inequality.org Educate! New Economy, wealth inequality

Bermuda is a lovely place to have a home. Pink sand beaches. Pleasant temperatures. A distinctive blend of British and American culture. Bermuda — all 22 square miles of it — also happens to be home to over 18,000 companies that trade and generate wealth in other jurisdictions but take advantage of the secrecy and low tax rates that Bermuda so generously offers. Economist Gabriel Zucman, author of The Hidden Wealth of Nations, and his research colleagues tell us that multinational corporations based in the United States and other advanced economies have sheltered nearly 40 percent of their profits in tax havens like Bermuda, in the process depriving their domestic governments of badly needly tax revenues and enriching already wealthy corporate shareholders.

How Rich Are The Ultra Rich?

June 15, 2018 Josh Hoxie, Other Words. Educate! New Economy, Poor People's Campaign, Poverty, wealth inequality

Nearly seven years ago — I know, wow — the Occupy Wall Street movement began highlighting the divide between the top 1 percent and the bottom 99 percent. Since then, it’s become common knowledge that income inequality in the United States is high. But there’s more to the story than just numbers. Income inequality isn’t the defining social issue of our time because your neighbor bought a slightly bigger house or nicer car than you did. It’s because multi-millionaires and billionaires are competing for slightly bigger mega-yachts while our friends set up GoFundMe accounts to plead for help with basic medical expenses.

Business Leaders Agree: Inequality Hurts The Bottom Line

March 15, 2018 By Chuck Collins, Otherwords.org Educate! Capitalism, Inequality, New Economy, wealth inequality

A growing number of corporate leaders say it's time for them to start sharing the wealth. For decades, big business leaders have warned that redistributing wealth is bad for business. Taxing the rich to pay for infrastructure and education, they say, will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. But what if it’s the opposite? What if decades of stagnant wages and growing inequality are scrambling the golden egg and stifling the economy? A growing body of research suggests that’s exactly what’s happening. And a growing number of business leaders now agree. Jim Sinegal, the retired CEO of Costco, famously fended off Wall Street pressure to cut wages and made an eloquent case for a higher federal minimum wage. “The more people make, the better lives they’re going to have and the better consumers they’re going to be,” Sinegal told the Washington Post years ago.

“If Poor People Knew How Rich Rich People Are, There Would Be Riots In The Streets”

March 7, 2018 David F. Ruccio, Anticap.wordpress.com Educate! Class Struggle, Inequality, wealth inequality

All the experts agree—from Thomas Piketty and the other members of the World Inequality Lab team to John C. Weicher of the conservative Hudson Institute—that inequality in the United States, especially the unequal distribution of wealth, has been worsening for decades now. Both before and after the crash of 2007-08. And there’s no sign that things are going to get better anytime soon, unless radical changes are made. But, as it turns out, even the experts underestimate the degree of inequality in the United States. The usual numbers that are produced and disseminated indicate that, in 2014 (the last year for which data are available), the top 1 percent of Americans owned one third (35 percent) of total household wealth while the bottom 90 percent had less than half (45.3 percent) of the wealth.

Richest 2% In US Made More Money Than Cost Of Entire Safety Net

February 27, 2018 Paul Buchheit, Nationofchange.org Educate! New Economy, Ruling Class, wealth inequality

How was their money made? Almost entirely by passively waiting for the stock market to go up. The data sources for this report are Forbes and Credit Suisse, both of which provide precise numbers for the worsening surge in America’s wealth inequality. U.S. wealth increased by $8.5 trillion in 2017, with the richest 2% getting about $1.15 trillion (details here), which is more than the total cost of Medicaid (federal AND state) and the complete safety net, both mandatory and discretionary, including the low-income programs that make up the social support package derisively referred to as ‘welfare.’ Surprisingly, the richest 1% did not increase their wealth by much in 2017 (although they took nearly $4 trillion in 2016). That means the second half of the richest 2%, Americans with an average net worth of approximately $10 million, outgained the safety net all by themselves in the past year.

Meet Dariel Garner, The ‘Billionaire Buddha’

February 20, 2018 Chuck Collins, Kosmosjournal.org Educate! Ideology, Propaganda, wealth inequality

At one time, Dariel Garner was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Over his life, he started and owned over 40 businesses on four continents with thousands of employees. His enterprises included the second largest agribusiness exporter in Mexico, a tech company that created software for banks, and companies as diverse as golf courses, ski parks and natural health care products. A decade ago, he was the developer and co-owner with his former wife of a vast resort in the California Sierra Mountains with projects underway that had projected profits of $750 million. Then he had a change of heart. Today, Dariel has none of this wealth. At the age of 67, he lives on a modest $900 a month from a Social Security check. “I’ve never been happier,” he smiles. “Today I am penniless and have far more than I could ever imagine existed. Each day I am awakened to the joy of being connected and part of all of life around me.

The Median Young Family Has Nearly Zero Wealth

February 8, 2018 Matt Bruenig, Peoplespolicyproject.org Educate! Economic inequality, wealth inequality

Using the Survey of Consumer Finances, I calculated various wealth series for young families with heads below the age of 35. Here is median net worth for young families. I include both the net worth concept used by the Federal Reserve and a modified net worth concept that excludes vehicles. Insofar as vehicles are rapidly depreciating consumer durables, many argue that they should not be counted as assets for these purposes. Without these vehicles, the median young family had a net worth of $1,250 in 2016. This was down from the $7,846 peak in 1995.

WaPo Defends Its Owner Against Charges That He’s Very Wealthy

January 25, 2018 By Jim Naureckas, Fair.org Educate! Capitalism, Ruling Class, wealth inequality

Awkwardly enough, one of the world’s six wealthiest people is the owner of the paper doing the factchecking. Or as the Postcoyly put it, “(Among the names on the list: Jeffrey P. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post.)” The Post’s Nicole Lewis didn’t say that Sanders was wrong, exactly. Instead, she said that “he has made a habit of relying on simplified statistics that are provocative but do little to illuminate the complexities of the US economic system.” Or as she said of a similar statement Sanders made about US (not global) wealth, “While technically correct, the condensed soundbite lacked nuance about wealth accumulation and debt in the United States.” The factcheck started out by acknowledging that, yes, the six richest people, according to Forbes, have net wealth of $462.6 billion.

US Has Taken 70% Of World’s Wealth Gains Since 2012

December 14, 2017 Paul Buchheit, truth-out.org Educate! New Economy, Terrorism, US Imperialism, wealth inequality

America's super-rich are taking not only from their own nation, but also from the rest of the world. Data from the 2017 Global Wealth Databook (GWD: Table 2-4) and various war reports help to explain why we're alienating people outside our borders. From 2012 to 2017, global wealth increased by $37.7 trillion, and U.S. wealth increased by $26 trillion. Thus, largely because of a surging stock market, our nation took nearly 70 percent of the entire global wealth gain over the past five years. Based on their dominant share of U.S. wealth, America's richest 10% -- much less than 1% of the world's adult population -- took over HALF the world's wealth gain in the past five years.

Act Out!: 400+ Reasons To Eat The Rich And More

November 23, 2017 Eleanor Goldfield, www.occupy.com Resistance Report #NoNAFTA2, NAFTA, Trade, wealth inequality

By Eleanor Goldfield for Occupy.com. This week on Act Out!, tempting though it may be to ignore all things real and political for the next few days, hiding behind cranberry sauce and turkey legs won't change the ever-widening and gaping abyss before us. Dive in with us as we survey our grotesquely top-heavy economy and where people like you and me stand today. Next up, some headlines from Scotland to Syria to why the oil and gas industries are racist. And finally, NAFTA renegotiations plus an expert take on what's to come and what we can do about it.

Relative Poverty Rate Increased By 1.3 Points In 2016

November 21, 2017 Matt Bruenig, peoplespolicyproject.org Educate! New Economy, Poverty, wealth inequality

By Matt Bruenig for People's Policy Project - Every year the Census Bureau publishes the official poverty rate and the supplemental poverty rate. The official rate groups all related people in a household into one unit, adds up all the cash income that flows into that unit (except tax credits), and then compares that income amount to a poverty line that varies based on the number of people in the unit. The supplemental rate works similarly except that it takes the cash income concept from the official rate, adds cash-like benefit incomes and tax credits to it, and then subtracts taxes paid, child support paid, child care expenses, work expenses, and medical out-of-pocket expenses. The supplemental rate uses a poverty line that varies geographically and by the number of people in the family unit. In addition to the official and supplemental rates, it can be useful to look at something called a relative poverty rate, which is more commonly used across the world. The relative poverty rate figures provided below are derived in the following manner: Each family’s income is determined by adding cash income, cash-like benefit income, and tax credits, and then subtracting taxes paid and child support paid.

America’s Wealth Inequality Has Reached Staggering New Levels

November 21, 2017 Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie, ips-dc.org Create! Class Struggle, United States, wealth inequality

By Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie for IPS - We tracked the rise of today’s uber-wealthy in a new report, “Billionaire Bonanza 2017: The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us,” published by the Institute for Policy Studies. We compared those at the top to the rest of the nation, whose economic condition isn’t plastered on the glossy pages of Forbes magazine, but instead buried in a study the Federal Reserve releases every three years. We looked specifically at wealth — the money left over after totaling a family’s assets and subtracting their debt. Wealth is where the past meets the present. It’s a more accurate depiction of economic status than income, which just shows how much money one makes in a given year. When Forbes first started compiling their famous list of the 400 wealthiest Americans in 1982, just $75 million would get you ranked. Even after accounting for inflation, that’s still less than $200 million in today’s dollars. These days, the price of admission is a record $2 billion — more than 10 times higher. This group of just 400 multi-billionaires owns a combined $2.68 trillion. That’s trillion with a T. And it’s more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the U.S. population, an estimated 204 million people. That’s more people than the populations of Canada and Mexico combined. On the other side of the economic spectrum, where the rest of the country resides, economic conditions are largely stagnant. The median family owns about $80,000 in wealth, excluding durable consumer goods like cars and appliances. This figure is essentially unchanged from 1983, when the Federal Reserve first started tracking household assets using a uniform survey.

Public Higher Ed Skews Wealthy

October 28, 2017 Rick Seltzer, www.insidehighered.com Educate! Higher Education, Tuition, wealth inequality

By Rick Seltzer for Inside Higher Education - A majority of the country’s top public universities have grown less accessible for the most financially strapped students since 1999 -- and at the same time, they have grown more accessible for wealthy students. More than half of selective public institutions, 54 percent, have reduced the share of students they enroll from families with incomes in the lowest 40 percent of earners, while also increasing the share of students they enroll from families that are among the country’s top 20 percent of earners. Put differently, 217 out of 381 top public institutions enrolled a larger share of wealthy students even as they reduced their percentages of low-income students. That statistic is key to a provocative argument about dwindling access in a new report being released today by the left-leaning think tank New America. The think tank is releasing its findings as part of a reportanalyzing publicly available data from the Equality of Opportunity Project, a study of U.S. social mobility combining public information on higher education with deidentified tax records from students and their parents. The Equality of Opportunity Project received coverage early this year for showing that a handful of prestigious colleges enrolled more students from the top 1 percent of families sorted by income than they did from the bottom 60 percent. Other coverage of the project included the argument that college rankings incentivize institutions to favor wealthy students. New America has also published a series of blog postslooking at the data and what they show about higher education and mobility.

The Wealthiest 1% Inherited An Average Of $4.8 Million

October 11, 2017 Nathaniel Lewis and Matt Bruenig, www.peoplespolicyproject.org Educate! Capitalism, New Economy, wealth inequality

By Nathaniel Lewis and Matt Bruenig for Peoples Policy Report - Using the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, we broke down mean inheritance levels by wealth decile. It is important to emphasize here that these are self-reported inheritances. Survey participants are asked to think back throughout their life and identify all the wealth transfers they have received and when they received them. Naturally this is prone to misreporting and, one would think, especially prone to underreporting as people tend to forget what gifts they have received over the years. Nonetheless, as you would expect, wealthier families are much more likely to have inherited wealth. Additionally, the wealthier a family is, the more they have generally inherited. For starters, here is the percent of families in each wealth decile who have received any inheritance.

The Trump-Goldman Sachs Tax Cut For The Rich

October 4, 2017 Jack Rasmus, www.jackrasmus.com Educate! Ruling Class, Taxes, Trump Administration, wealth inequality

By Jack Rasmus for Jack Rasmus - “This past week Trump introduced his long awaited Tax Cut, estimated between $2.0 to $2.4 trillion. Like so many other distortions of the truth, Trump claimed his plan would benefit the middle class, not the rich—the latest in a long litany of lies by this president. Contradicting Trump, the independent Tax Policy Center has estimated in just the first year half of the $2 trillion plus Trump cuts will go to the wealthiest 1% households that annually earn more than $730,000. That’s an immediate income windfall to the wealthiest 1% households of 8.5%, according to the Tax Policy Center. But that’s only in the first of ten years the cuts will be in effect. It gets worse over time. According to the Tax Policy Center, “Taxpayers in the top one percent (incomes above $730,000), would receive about 50 percent of the total tax benefit [in 2018]”. However, “By 2027, the top one percent would get 80 percent of the plan’s tax cuts while the share for middle-income households would drop to about five percent.” By the last year of the cuts, 2027, on average the wealthiest 1% household would realize $207,000, and the even wealthier 0.1% would realize an income gain of $1,022,000.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources