wealth inequality

Building Or Unbuilding America?

March 15, 2021 Nomi Prins, Tom Dispatch. Create! Green New Deal, Infrastructure, Jobs, wealth inequality

During the Trump years, the phrase “Infrastructure Week” rang out as a sort of Groundhog Day-style punchline. What began in June 2017 as a failed effort by The Donald’s White House and a Republican Senate to focus on the desperately needed rebuilding of American infrastructure morphed into a meme and a running joke in Washington. Despite the focus in recent years on President Trump’s failure to do anything for the country’s crumbling infrastructure, here’s a sad reality: considered over a longer period of time, Washington’s political failure to fund the repairing, modernizing, or in some cases simply the building of that national infrastructure has proven a remarkably bipartisan “effort.”

Your Privileges Are Not Universal

February 26, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Austerity, Hunger, Pandemic, wealth inequality

Stencilled in red on the walls of Santiago, Chile is a statement of fact: ‘your privileges are not universal’ (tus privilegios no son universales). This is a factual declaration because the privileges of power and property are not shared across the gaping class divide. Consider the fact that before the pandemic struck last year, over 3 billion people – or half the world’s population – had no access to health care. This data appears in a 2017 World Health Organisation (WHO) report that tracks important matters such as access to basic household sanitation (lacked by 2.3 billion people) and medical care for uncontrolled hypertension (suffered by 1 billion people). An Oxfam report from 25 January 2021 called The Inequality Virus points out that ‘the pandemic could cause the biggest increase in inequality since records began, as it precipitates a simultaneous and substantial rise across many countries’.

Lee Camp: It’s Time For Major Wealth Redistribution

February 25, 2021 Lee Camp, ScheerPost.com. Create! Capitalism, wealth inequality, Wealth redistribution, Working Class

It’s time for wealth redistribution. There, I said it. I know it’s the third rail of politics, but I’m not running for a damn thing, which makes me free to speak the truth. (Well, I am running for president of my neighborhood elementary school’s PTA, but I’m pretty sure I’ll win easily since my campaign slogan is “Extend the school day to 20 hours because we don’t want to deal with those little monsters. You take ‘em!” . . . Well, I’ll win as long as they don’t find out I don’t have a child.) Anyway, we desperately need wealth redistribution. And before anyone starts yelling something about Joseph Stalin, here’s the part that’s going to blow your mind — in the United States we’ve already had wealth redistribution for decades.

Taxes On The Rich: One-Sixth Of What They Used To Be

February 19, 2021 Chuck Collins and Bob Lord, Inequality.org. Educate! Tax the rich, Taxes, wealth inequality

According to a new IPS briefing paper, the richest .01 percent of Americans, about 33,000 lucky souls today, now pay just one-sixth of what they used to pay in tax, when measured as a percentage of their total wealth. The top .01 percent in America is a phenomenally wealthy group. Even during America’s most egalitarian periods, the average member of the top .01% held over 200 times the wealth of the average American. Today, the wealth of the average top .01 percenter is nearly 1,000 times that of the average American and is closing in on one billion dollars. Hence, it doesn’t matter to the top .01 percent what type of tax they pay, be it income, sales, property or anything else. Taxes don’t influence their spending decisions or such mundane things as how many hours they work, when they retire, or whether their spouse must work.

The Three Apartheids Of Our Times (Money, Medicine, Food)

February 12, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! China, COVID-19, Socialism, wealth inequality

In the early months after the World Health Organisation announced the coronavirus pandemic, the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy wrote of her hope that the pandemic would be a ‘portal, a gateway between one world and the next’. She hoped, in other words, that the world would recognise its grave problems, exacerbated by the pandemic, and that there would be an opening towards a reorganisation of the social structures. Nothing like that is possible unless the class character of the states in the majority of the world is transformed. Mere recognition of the problem will not result in any epiphany in places such as the United States, Europe, and the larger states of the developing world such as Brazil and India.

The Failings Of Unemployment Insurance Are By Design

February 4, 2021 Marty Hart-Landsberg, Reports From the Economic Front. Educate! Poverty, Unemployment benefits, wealth inequality, Worker Rights

Our unemployment insurance system has failed the country at a moment of great need. With tens of millions of workers struggling just to pay rent and buy food, Congress was forced to pass two emergency spending bills, providing one-time stimulus payments, special weekly unemployment insurance payments, and temporary unemployment benefits to those not covered by the system. And, because of their limited short-term nature, President Biden must now advocate for a third. The system’s shortcomings have been obvious for some time, but little effort has been made to improve it. In fact, those shortcomings were baked into the system at the beginning, as President Roosevelt wanted, not by accident.

Chris Hedges: Papering Over The Rot

February 1, 2021 Chris Hedges, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Chris Hedges, oligarchy, US Empire, wealth inequality

The death spiral of the American Empire will not be halted with civility. It will not be halted with the 42 executive orders signed by Joe Biden, however welcome many are, especially since they can, with a new chief executive, be immediately revoked. It will not be halted by removing Donald Trump, and the crackpot conspiracy theorists, Christian fascists and racists who support him, from social media. It will not be halted by locking up the Proud Boys and the clueless protestors who stormed the Congress on January 6 and took selfies in Mike Pence’s Senate chair. It will not be halted by restoring the frayed alliances with our European allies or rejoining the World Health Organization or the Paris Climate Agreement.

The Country Where Liberty Is A Statue

January 15, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Capitalism, Capitol, US military, wealth inequality

On 6 January, the world witnessed an interesting spectacle, an assortment of what appeared to be characters from fantasy television shows taking possession of the US Capitol, where the legislature sits. Despite spending more than $1 trillion on its military, intelligence services, and police, the United States government found itself overrun by a horde of Donald Trump’s supporters. They came without any precise programme and were not able to elicit a serious revolt around the country. What they showed clearly is that there is a serious divide in the United States, which weakens the ability of the US elites to exercise their domination over the world.

In Mainstream Media, Capitalism’s Failures Are Always Your Fault

December 21, 2020 Taya Graham, The Real News. Resistance Report Congress, COVID-19, Pentagon Budget, wealth inequality

Just a quick note: This show is about an existential threat to humanity - the growing gulf between the rich and the rest of us. But why do we need a show solely about the topic of inequality? Because almost every other social ill which threatens the quality of our lives and the state of our democracy is affected by the underlying imperative of rampant inequality. Well, how do I know this? Well just consider what happened this week in the catastrophic mess also known as Washington DC. Their well-heeled politicians and their lobbyist enablers found themselves at an impasse over much-needed aid for a country reeling from a worsening pandemic.

The Revolutionaries, When They Rise, Care For Nothing But Love

December 18, 2020 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Arab Spring, Democracy, Revolution, wealth inequality

A decade has now slipped by since a man named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid on 17 December 2010. Bouazizi, a street vendor, took this extreme step after policemen harassed him for trying to survive. Not long after, thousands of people in this small Tunisian town gathered in the street to express their anger. Their outburst spread to the capital city, Tunis, where trade unions, social organisations, political parties, and civic groups marched into the avenues to overthrow the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Demonstrations in Tunisia inspired similar outbreaks around the Mediterranean Sea from Egypt to Spain, the chant of Cairo’s Tahrir Square – ash-sha’b yurid isqat an-nizam ‘(the people want to overthrow the regime’) – redolent with the emotion of hundreds of millions.

Huge Study Of 50 Years Of Tax Cuts For The Wealthy

December 16, 2020 Grace Dean, Business Insider. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Taxes, wealth inequality, Wealth Tax

Large tax cuts for the rich don't lead to economic growth and employment but instead cause higher income inequality, a new study that examined tax cuts over 50 years suggested. A recent paper by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King's College London found that tax cuts for the rich in 18 countries predominantly benefited the wealthy. "Our analysis finds strong evidence that cutting taxes on the rich increases income inequality but has no effect on growth or unemployment" in the short and long term, the researchers wrote. After major tax cuts for the rich were introduced, the top 1% share of pretax national income increased by almost 1 percentage point, they found.

How Some Of America’s Richest Towns Fight Affordable Housing

December 15, 2020 Jacqueline Rabe Thomas, ProPublica. Educate! Connecticut, Housing, Systemic Racism, wealth inequality

Westport, CT - A dirt field overgrown with weeds is the incongruous entrance to one of America’s wealthiest towns, a short walk to a Rodeo Drive-like stretch replete with upscale stores such as Tiffany & Co. But this sad patch of land is also the physical manifestation of a broader turf war over what type of housing — and ultimately what type of people — to allow within Westport’s borders. It started when a developer known for building large luxury homes envisioned something different back in 2014 for the 2.2 acre property: a mix of single- and multifamily housing that would accommodate up to 12 families. A higher density project is more cost efficient, he said, and would allow him to sell the units for less than the typical Westport home.

How Inequality Reduces Growth

December 3, 2020 William H. Janeway, Project Syndicate. Create! Finance and the Economy, Neoliberalism, wealth inequality

Cambridge – As the neoliberal epoch draws to a close, two statistical facts stand out. There has been a continuing increase in income and wealth inequality since 1980, especially in the United States; and there has been a marked slowdown in productivity growth across the developed world since 2000. The first observation has motivated extensive academic work, with national income accounting being expanded to include explicit measures of the distribution of income. The fruits of these efforts are beginning to emerge in the economics literature.

Biden, The Emcee At The Billionaires’ Ball

November 27, 2020 Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Billionaires, Capitalism, Joe Biden, wealth inequality

The Orange Era of racist rants will soon be over – just a few hundred mad tweets to go till January 20th, when the head flunky for the real rulers of the USA will take over the levers of government. Joe Biden made only one campaign promise that counts -- to the only people that matter to corporate Democrats -- when he assured the party’s rich funders that “No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change” under his presidency. But even as he spoke, back in June, the greatest change in wealth and power relationships in U.S. history was in full roar, as the billionaire class feasted on the Covid economy.

New Report: ‘Billionaire Wealth vs. Community Health’

November 18, 2020 the Institute for Policy Studies. Educate! Billionaires, COVID-19, Essential worker, wealth inequality

Washington, DC - Essential workers went underpaid, unsupported and forced to risk their health at corporations owned or operated by billionaires, even as the total wealth of America’s billionaires rose by more than $1 trillion under the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), United for Respect, and Bargaining for the Common Good Network. An analysis of billionaire wealth by IPS found that 647 U.S. billionaires gained $960 billion, almost $1 trillion in wealth between March 18, 2020 and November 17, 2020.

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