wealth inequality

On A Top-Heavy Planet, A Bit Of A Nordic Puzzler

October 21, 2014 Sam Pizzigati, www.inequality.org Educate! Income inequality, Sweden, wealth inequality

These contrasts in wealth concentration shouldn’t surprise anyone. The United States, after all, has a much more unequal distribution of income than Japan. American top 1 percenters take in 22.5 percent of U.S. income. The comparable top 1 percent income share in Japan: only 10.4 percent. In other words, America’s top 1 percent is annually adding to its net worth a much higher share of national income than Japan’s top 1 percent. Given this dynamic, how could a great deal more wealth not sit in the pockets of America’s 1 percent? Nations with narrower income divides, common sense tells us, are always going to have narrower wealth divides. Or will they? Consider Sweden. This Nordic nation today sports an income distribution even more equal than Japan’s. At last count, says the World Top Incomes Database, Sweden’s top 1 percenters were pulling in only 8.7 percent of their nation’s income.

What If Black America Were A Country?

October 18, 2014 Theodore R. Johnson, www.theatlantic.com Educate! Democracy, Racial Justice, United States, wealth inequality

In a recent debate with a CNN contributor, the conservative radio talk-show host Larry Elder declared that “if black America were a country, it would be the 15th-wealthiest country in the world.” His math proved incorrect, and his invocation of “black America” was followed by a refutation of the concept by a fellow black conservative. Shortly after Elder’s remarks, the Republican strategist Ron Christie argued that there is no such thing as "black America" and, further, that the very notion of it is antithetical “to our national motto of E Pluribus Unum.” Whether these men know it or not, they are continuing a debate that W.E.B. Du Bois gave voice to 80 years ago in his resignation speech from the NAACP. In a farewell address titled, “A Negro Nation Within a Nation,” Du Bois asserted: The peculiar position of Negroes in America offers an opportunity. … With the use of their political power, their power as consumers, and their brainpower … Negroes can develop in the United States an economic nation within a nation ...

We’d Have Revolution If People Understood This

October 8, 2014 Dennis Trainor, Jr., www.acronymtv.wordpress.com Resistance Report Guaranteed income, Poverty, wealth inequality

Martin Luther King, Jr. was working towards a guaranteed basic income for all when he was killed. Wealth inequality, neoliberalism, the actions of the Federal Reserve, along with the greed and theft of the global elite have made the call for a guaranteed basic income for all even more urgent in 2014 than in the 1960s. David DeGraw, interviewed here by Dennis Trainor, Jr. of Acronym TV claims the alternative is a violent revolution. In his new book, The Economics of Revolution, DeGraw writes: “Having that much wealth consolidated within a mere 1% of the population, while a record number of people toil in poverty and debt, is a crime against humanity. For example, it would only cost 0.5% of the 1%’s wealth to eliminate poverty nationwide. Also consider that at least 40% of the 1%’s accounted for wealth is sitting idle. That’s an astonishing $13 trillion in wealth hoarded away, unused.”

The Economics Of Revolution

September 17, 2014 Resistance Report Acronym TV, David DeGraw, wealth inequality

“Corruption, greed and economic inequality have reached a peak tipping point,” writes David Degraw. “Due to the consolidation of wealth, the majority of the population cannot generate enough income to keep up with the cost of living. In the present economy, under current government policy, 70% of the population is now sentenced to an impoverished existence.” In this special 3rd anniversary of Occupy Wall St. edition of Acronym TV, David DeGraw sits down with Dennis Trainor, Jr.

Confronting Not Only Climate Collapse But Energy Poverty

September 7, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Climate Change, Energy, Inequality, Solar, wealth inequality

A significant part of their analysis is not only about confronting climate change but also confronting energy poverty where much of the world is unable to use enough energy to have a decent and healthy life. Most of these people are living in the developing world or global South. Another group of people, mostly in the global North, consume more than an equitable share of energy. In order to address energy poverty in the global South, as well as under-served people in the global North requires most countries in the global North, especially the United States, to reduce energy consumption, but the overall delivery to the global population needs to increase. As a starting point for their analysis they calculate that the rough minimum to achieve world standard life expectancy is 3.5 kilowatt/person, so for 7 billion this is equivalent to 25 trillion watts, with present consumption being 18 trillion watts. See their report "A Solar Transition Is Possible."

First Time Protest At Bankers Meeting In Jackson Hole, WY

August 31, 2014 Sam Pizzigati, www.inequality.org Resist! Finance and the Economy, Income inequality, Inequality, wealth inequality

This year’s Jackson Hole hobnob, once again hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, last week attracted the usual assortment of central bankers, finance ministers, and influential business journalists. But this year’s gathering also attracted something else: protesters. For the first time ever, activists converged on Jackson Hole — to let the Fed’s central bankers know, as protest organizers put it, that “it’s not just the rich who are watching them.” Over 70 groups and unions backed the protest and signed onto an open letter that calls on America’s central bankers to start nurturing an economy that works for workers. At one point, early on in the Jackson Hole gathering, protesters actually had a brief exchange with Federal Reserve Board chair Janet Yellin. “We understand the issues you’re talking about,” Yellin told them, “and we’re doing everything we can.”

NYC Approves Building With Separate Entrance For Poor People

July 23, 2014 Andy Cush, gawker.com Educate! Housing, Inequality, wealth inequality

It would be difficult to come with a more on-the-nose metaphor for New York City's income inequality problem than the new high-rise apartment building coming to 40 Riverside Boulevard, which will feature separate doors for regular, wealthy humans and whatever you call the scum that rents affordable housing. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development approved Extell's Inclusionary Housing Program application for the 33-story tower this week, the New York Post reports. The status grants Extell the aforementioned tax breaks and the right to construct a larger building than would ordinarily be allowed. According to the Daily Mail, affordable housing tenants will enter through a door situated on a "back alley."

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”.

Young Students’ Solution To Corporate Rule

June 25, 2014 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Corporatism, Economics, TPP, wealth inequality

Congratulations to the 2014 economics club. After they arranged and completed an interview with former economic hit-man John Perkins, they wrote, directed, filmed and edited a successful submission for the C-SPAN documentary contest. Despite not placing in the C-SPAN competition, they received praise for their work from former assistant secretary of the treasury and editor of the wall st. journal Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, journalist and author Nomi Prins, and investigative journalist James Corbett. They even had requests from citizens in foreign countries to release it in different languages. When this video was brought to our attention, we thought it would be important to share it with our readers. The students explain the current economic and political environment in a clear and concise manner that people of all ages will appreciate. And they put forth a positive solution.

Rising People-Powered Movement Is Transforming The World

June 24, 2014 Margaret Flowers, www.kosmosjournal.org Strategize! Austerity, Climate Change, Occupy, Revolution, wealth inequality

On a snowy weekend in January, activists for social, economic and environmental justice from across the United States gathered in a Chicago union hall to plan a Global Climate Convergence: ten days of action from Earth Day to May Day. Many of these activists had never focused on the climate crisis before, being mired instead in fighting battles that loomed more immediately in their lives. Who has the capacity to worry about climate change when your community is hungry, cold, without shelter, lacks health care or is being poisoned? During that weekend meeting, we transcended the barriers that typically lead to working in narrow silos and treading water while the oceans literally and figuratively continue to rise around us. We stepped outside of our particular areas of advocacy, connected our struggles, and forged a collective effort to take action together this spring and beyond. The rallying cry was that the time has arrived to join hands and change course.

The Science of Inequality

June 1, 2014 Heather Pringle, www.sciencemag.org Educate! Poverty, wealth inequality

In 79 C.E., the year Mount Vesuvius destroyed it, Pompeii was not one city but two. Its wealthiest families owned slaves and lived in multistoried, seaside mansions, one of which was more than half the size of the White House. They dined in rooms with costly frescoes, strolled in private gardens, and soaked in private baths. Meanwhile, at least one-third of all Pompeiian households scraped to make ends meet, with families dwelling in single rooms behind workshops, in dark service quarters, or in small houses. Such economic disparities were common in the Roman Empire, where 1.5% of the empire's households controlled 20% of the income by the late 2nd century C.E., according to one recent study. Inequality has deep archaeological roots. Yet if existing traditional societies are any guide, our hunter-gatherer ancestors were mostly egalitarian. How and when did a few members of society begin to amass wealth?

Pope: The Bible Demands The Redistribution Of Wealth

May 11, 2014 Jack Jenkins, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Inequality, wealth inequality

Pope Francis called for “the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits” on Friday, arguing that the Bible demands an economic system that cares for the “poorest and those most excluded.” Francis made the comments while speaking before a gathering of several United Nations agency leaders, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. As he reflected on the U.N.’s target for Future Sustainable Development Goals, the first Latin American pope asked those present to resist participating in an “economy of exclusion” and to strive to have “a real impact on the structural causes of poverty and hunger.” “In the case of global political and economic organization, much more needs to be achieved, since an important part of humanity does not share in the benefits of progress and is in fact relegated to the status of second-class citizens,” Francis said. Francis grounded his argument in the biblical story of Zacchaeus, a rich (and likely corrupt) tax collector who dramatically altered his economic behavior after encountering Jesus Christ.

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