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Wealth Inequality/Class

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May Day. (Image: Rich Black) People seem to know about May Day everywhere except where it began, here in the United States of America. That's because those in power have done everything they can to erase its real meaning. For example, Ronald Reagan designated what he called "Law Day" - a day of jingoist fanaticism, like an extra twist of the knife in the labor movement. Today, there is a renewed awareness, energized by the Occupy movement's organizing, around May Day, and its relevance for reform and perhaps eventual revolution. If you're a serious revolutionary, then you are not looking for an autocratic revolution, but a popular one, which will move toward freedom and democracy. Harvest of Empire Part 1/ 19 l wanna watch free hd Quality movies Widescreen Preview. Michael Parenti - No War But the Class War Part 2. Michael Parenti - No War But the Class War Part 1.

Graeber_sadness.pdf (application/pdf Object) Michael Parenti - No War But the Class War Part 1. Robert Reich: Detroit and the Bankruptcy of America’s Social Contract. A city’s downfall highlights the unprecedented income segregation that exists in the U.S. today. Image from Flickr via memories_by_mike By Robert ReichBy arrangement with Robert Reich One way to view Detroit’s bankruptcy—the largest bankruptcy of any American city—is as a failure of political negotiations over how financial sacrifices should be divided among the city’s creditors, city workers, and municipal retirees—requiring a court to decide instead. It could also be seen as the inevitable culmination of decades of union agreements offering unaffordable pension and health benefits to city workers. But there’s a more basic story here, and it’s being replicated across America: Americans are segregating by income more than ever before. Detroit is a devastatingly poor, mostly black, increasingly abandoned island in the midst of a sea of comparative affluence that’s mostly white.

The median household income within the city of Detroit is around $26,000, and unemployment is staggeringly high. Chomsky: "Jobs aren't coming back" - Occupy Wall Street. The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead — because victory won’t come quickly — it could prove a significant moment in American history. The fact that the Occupy movement is unprecedented is quite appropriate. After all, it’s an unprecedented era and has been so since the 1970s, which marked a major turning point in American history.

I’m just old enough to remember the Great Depression. There was militant labor union organizing going on, especially from the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). It’s quite different now. In the 1930s, unemployed working people could anticipate that their jobs would come back. The change took place in the 1970s. On Banks Before the 1970s, banks were banks. And it was egalitarian. On Politics and Money The parties dissolved in many ways. Turning Our Backs on Unions. It stands out in part because Noah, a columnist for The New Republic, is not content to simply shake his fists at the heavens in anger. He spends exactly one chapter on what he calls the “rise of the stinking rich” — that is, the explosion in executive pay and what he calls “the financialization of the economy,” which has enriched one small segment of society at the expense of everyone else. Mostly, he grapples with the deep, hard-to-tickle-out reasons that the gap between the rich and the middle class in the United States has widened to such alarming proportions.

How much have technological advances contributed to income inequality? Globalization and off-shoring? The necessity of having a college education to land a decent-paying job? The decline of labor unions? That last one, I have to admit, caught me up short. Noah includes himself as one of those liberals “who spent too much time beating up unions,” as he told me recently. This makes perfect sense, of course. Chart of the Day: Unemployment in Europe Is Catastrophically High and Still Getting Worse. This is from the OECD's Employment Outlook 2013, and it shows the level of unemployment in the world's rich countries. Joblessness in Greece and Spain is at about 27 percent, higher than the United States suffered even during the depths of the Great Depression.

Portugal, Ireland, Slovakia, and Italy are at somewhat less catastrophic levels, but still in dire shape. But here's the worst part. See those white diamonds above each of the blue bars? Income Share of the Top 1 Percent, 1913-2012 (annotated) | Graphic Economics. September 20, 2013 This graphic adds an annotated political history to the iconic (and recently-updated) Piketty and Saez data on top income shares in the U.S. The events and legislative landmarks listed here are representative rather than exhaustive. And they are meant to suggest broad policy shifts rather than direct causal relationships.

But the pattern is nevertheless clear. The share of the top one percent rose during eras of tax cutting, light financial regulation (or deregulation), and labor weakness. And inequality narrowed when policy pushed in the opposite direction. Colin Gordon is a professor of 20th Century U.S. The Real Numbers: Half of America in Poverty -- and It's Creeping Upward. The Census Bureau has reported that 15% of Americans live in poverty. A shocking figure. But it's actually much worse. Inequality is spreading like a shadowy disease through our country, infecting more and more households, and leaving a shrinking number of financially secure families to maintain the charade of prosperity. 1.

Almost half of Americans had NO assets in 2009 Analysis of Economic Policy Institute data shows that Mitt Romney's famous 47 percent, the alleged 'takers,' have taken nothing. Their debt exceeded their assets in 2009. 2. Since the recession, the disparities have continued to grow. 3. The IRS reports that the highest wage in the bottom half of earners is about $34,000. Even the Census Bureau recognizes that its own figures under-represent the number of people in poverty. 4. Nothing, that is, except debt. 5. Inequality is at its ugliest for the hungriest people. Arguments about poverty won't end. Billionaires' club has welcomed 210 new members, Forbes rich list reports | Business. Many of the world's largest economies may be weathering the toughest recessionary storms in living memory, but for those at the top there has rarely been an easier time to join the billionaires' club.

Some 210 multi-millionaires were propelled into the premier league of extreme wealth in the last 12 months as they achieved 10-figure fortunes and the world now plays host to a record 1,426 dollar billionaires, according to Forbes magazine's study. This super-rich set together sit on wealth estimated at $5.4tn (£3.6tn) – equal to more than a third of the annual output of the US, the world's largest economy. Last year the billionaires' club held a combined wealth of $4.6tn. At the top of the billionaire tree, once again, is the Mexican telecoms magnate Carlos Slim, with an estimated worth of $73bn, followed by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has a fortune of $67bn. Buffett's wealth is put at $55.5bn. It is the first time in 13 years that he has not featured in Forbes' top three. Exclusive: 4 in 5 in US face near-poverty, no work. WASHINGTON (AP) -- Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.

Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend. The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality. Hardship is particularly growing among whites, based on several measures. Pessimism among that racial group about their families' economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987. In the most recent AP-GfK poll, 63 percent of whites called the economy "poor. " "It's pretty hard," she said. Among the findings: Online: Mark Blyth: Austerity - The History of a Dangerous Idea. Corporate Tax Rates Plummet As Profits Soar.

Individual income tax payments have been rising fast since the economy began to recover, even though wages have hardly budged. But the same isn’t true for taxes for most corporations. For the vast majority of America’s 5.8 million corporations, profits soared in 2010 — up 53 percent compared to 2009 — when the recession official ended at mid-year. Despite skyrocketing profits, however, their corporate income tax bills actually shrank by $1.9 billion, or 2.6 percent.

The effective tax rate paid by 99.95 percent of companies fell to 15.9 percent in the robustly profitable year of 2010, from 24.9 percent in the half-recession year 2009. Those figures do not count the 2,772 companies that dominate the American economy. Their combined profits soared 45.2 percent to a new record in 2010, but their taxes rose just 14.8 percent, new IRS data show. In 2010 these corporate giants paid just 16.7 percent of their profits in taxes, down from 21.1 percent in 2009.