Holiday Reading

Amazon's Internal Injury Records Expose The True Toll Of Its Relentless Drive For Speed
The Danger Of Centrist Conventional Wisdom
How To Reform Today's Rigged Capitalism
The Massive Triumph Of The Rich, Illustrated By Stunning New Data
It's Becoming Clear That High-Speed Rail Would Benefit Wisconsin More Than Foxconn
Foxconn May Cut State GDP By $6 Billion
Charter Schools Wasted $48.6 Million In State Grants
Trump Tariffs Cost State $800 Million
Foxconn Says It Can't Find Workers
Showdown In Wisconsin Valley
The Jobs Market Isn't As Healthy As It Seems

The Misplaced Priorities Of Conservatives or Republicans Are Full Of Shit

Weekend Reading

From Gentrification To Decline: How Neighborhoods Really Change
The California Economy Isn't Just A U.S. Powerhouse
The US Government Is The World's Largest Purchaser Of Consumer Goods. Amazon Wants A Piece
Stephen Moore Wants People To Pay More Attention To His Economic Policies. Challenge Accepted.
Rich Guys Are Most Likely To Have No Idea What They're Talking About
Chinese Billionaire Jack Ma Says The US Wasted Billions On Warfare Instead Of Investing In Infrastructure
'I'm Fucked,' And Other Damning Revelations From The Mueller Report
Sanctioned Russian Oligarch's Company To Invest Millions In New Aluminum Plant In Mitch McConnell's State

Myths About Raising Taxes On The Rich

Weekend Reading

Voter Impersonations Very Rare, Studies Show
Property Taxes Increase Under Walker
Support For Kavanaugh Pattern Of Ron Johnson's Horrendous Record On Issues Of Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment
Rewarding Corporations That Cut Jobs
How Liberals Could Declare War On Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court
Donald Trump And The Self-Made Sham
This Is How The Rich Steal From America
Milwaukee County Leaders Say They Will Seek A Fair Share Of State Tax Revenues
Lindsey Graham's Old Comments About Merrick Garland Come Back To Haunt Him
Wisconsin DOT Knowingly Paid Twice On Stretch Of Roadwork For Zoo Interchange
A Stats-Based Look Behind The Venture Capital Curtain

Eight Men Own The Same Wealth As The Poorest Half Of The World

8 people have same wealth as world's poorest half

Income inequality is so now lopsided that eight men now own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world. 

A top corporate CEO earns as much in a year as 10,000 garment factory workers in Bangladesh. 

And the world's 10 biggest corporations together have revenue greater than the 180 poorest countries combined. 

These findings by Oxfam, from a report titled An economy for the 99%, was released Sunday as the globe's leaders and the business elite traveled to Davos, Switzerland, for this week's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. The conference is partly aimed at eliminating extreme income inequality. 

The study found that the richest eight people on the planet have net wealth of $426 billion — equivalent to what's held by the bottom half of the world's population.

An Economy For The 99%

Yet the global inequality crisis continues unabated: 

• Since 2015, the richest 1% has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet. 

• Eight men now own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world. 

• Over the next 20 years, 500 people will hand over $2.1 trillion to their heirs – a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people. 

• The incomes of the poorest 10% of people increased by less than $3 a year between 1988 and 2011, while the incomes of the richest 1% increased 182 times as much. 

• A FTSE-100 CEO earns as much in a year as 10,000 people in working in garment factories in Bangladesh.

• In the US, new research by economist Thomas Piketty shows that over the last 30 years the growth in the incomes of the bottom 50% has been zero, whereas incomes of the top 1% have grown 300%. 

• In Vietnam, the country‟s richest man earns more in a day than the poorest person earns in 10 years.

Weekend Reading

Another Clinton-Trump Divide: High-Output America Vs. Low-Output America
Obama's Economic Record: An Assessment
The New Suburbia: More Urban
Bring This Up When A Conservative Mentions Obama's Doubled The National Debt
Fox News Screws Up Its Latest Lie
Kansas Offers Cautionary Tale For Trump's Tax Ambition
Republicans Call Obamacare A 'Failure.' These 7 Charts Show They Couldn't Be More Wrong
The Real "Takers" In America: The Unproductive, Rent-Extracting Rich
How To Be A Lawyer Without Going To Law School
Mesmerizing Commute Maps Reveal We All Live In Mega-Regions, Not Cities
Management Theory Is Becoming A Compendium Of Dead Ideas

Weekend Reading

Oxfam Finds 85 Elites As Rich As 3.5 Billion People
Trickle-Down Economics Is The Greatest Broken Promise Of Our Lifetime
Here's Why The Idea Of A 'Traditional Marriage' Is Total Bullshit
25 Manners Everyone Needs
Health Care Spending Slows To Historically Low Rate
Income Growth Has Stalled For Most Americans
The Biggest Myths In Economics
No, Raising The Minimum Wage Won't Kill The Economy
8 Subconscious Mistakes Your Brain Makes Everyday

Oh! Big Surprise

Top wage earners get biggest benefit from Gov. Scott Walker's tax cuts

"People shouldn't be misled to think there's much in it for the bottom two-fifths of Wisconsin," Peacock said of Walker's latest plan. 

Reschovsky said the proposed property tax cut would be of some help overall to renters, since it would help to hold down rent increases. But it would also help state companies with Wisconsin parcels and well-to-do families with vacation homes, not just elderly homeowners struggling to pay their annual tax bills.

Top 5% of Wisconsin Residents Get 18% of Tax Cuts Proposed by the Governor

We’re primarily concerned that Governor Walker’s plan ignores holes in the current budget, and creates a deeper hole in the next one – boosting the structural deficit in 2013-15 to $825 million.

That said, many people have asked us about the distribution of the proposed tax cuts, and we asked the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) to crunch the numbers for us. The ITEP analysis — which focused just on the two major changes in the Governor’s plan — found that the top 5% of Wisconsinites, who made $161,000 or more in 2013, will get 18% of the tax cuts. By contrast, the bottom 40% get just 15% of the benefit.

Why Not Pay Everyone In Cocaine & Unicorns?

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Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

For Further Reading:

Research Shows Minimum Wage Increases Do Not Cause Job Loss

Minimum Wage

Why Does the Minimum Wage Have No Discernible Effect on Employment?

Ultra Rich Pulling Away From Everyone Else

[source]

In 2011, 4.48 percent of all income in the United States was captured by the top 0.01 percent of Americans — a group of less than 16,000 households (or “tax units” in IRS parlance). That’s actually down from a peak of 6.04 percent in 2007. Of the top 10 years for the top 0.01 percent, eight have come since 2000; the other two were 1928 and 1929, right before the Great Depression.

The average member of the top 0.01 percent made $23,679,531 in 2011; the cutoff for membership in the group was $7,969,900. That’s a good deal less than 2007, when the average member of the group made $38,016,760. For comparison, the average member of the bottom 90 percent made $30,437 in 2011 and $35,173 in 2007.

Until the 1970s, the bottom 90 percent had actually seen its income grow more than any other income group. The income gap was shrinking. But the ultra-rich quickly reversed that trend. In 2007, the top 0.01 percent had an average income almost seven times that of 1917; the average income of the bottom 90 percent had barely tripled. The country has grown more unequal, not less, since then.

American Inequality

"The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million of us put together."

The Myth Of Living Beyond Our Means
The Middle Class In America Is Being Wiped Out

The Fortunate 400

What A Night It Was

Weekend Reading

Bogle On Active Management
Crazy Idea That Government Doesn't Create Jobs 
Fat Cat Comments Or Dodd-Frank
Food Stamps Cause Global Depression
Historical Trends In Income Inequality
The Real Barrier To Tax Reform
Social Security Keeps 21 Million Out Of Poverty
Why Democrats Are Right To Politicize Sandy
World's 200 Richest People

Tax Cuts Do Not Boost The Economy

A recent Congressional Research Service report documented what many already knew: giving tax breaks to the rich helps concentrate wealth at the top, but it does not boost the economy (as reported here).

Taxes & The Economy: An Economic Analysis Of The Top Tax Rates Since 1945.

Sunday Reading

Bitter Money Fights Shaped U.S. History
Everything You Need To Know About Mormonism
The Fiscal Legacy of George W. Bush
Tax Foundation Figures Don't Represent Typical Household
Why Elites Fail
Windfall! Rich Get Richer From New Tax Credit

Weekend Reading

Conservative Silent About Romney-Alinsky Link
The Founding Father Backed Health Insurance Mandates
Inequality 101: The Picket Fence & The Staircase
The Old, White, Rich Men Who Are Buying This Election
Out Of Control Medicare Spending? Maybe Not
Venture Capital Is Sucking (Your Money)
Want To Cut Health Care Costs? Start Here
What Mitt Romney Learned From His Dad

Weekend Reading

Do Small Businesses Create Jobs?
Fiscal Therapy
Fix Income Inequality With $10 Million Loans For Everyone!
Romneys Were Able To Give Sons $100 Million Tax Free
Social Security in U.S. Less Generous Than Other Countries
The Rich Are Different Than You & Me...They Pay Lower Taxes
Why Do Half Of All Americans Pay No Federal Income Taxes?
Why You Should Care That 70% Of Antibiotics Go Into Animal Feed
Will The Exurbs Ever Make A Comeback?

Weekend Economic Reading

Everything's Made in China? Not Quite.

The Hope That Flows From History

Our Sputtering Economy

A Second Great Depression, or Worse?

Stop Coddling The Super-Rich

Ten Charts That Prove U.S. is a Low-Tax Country

20,000 Leagues Under the State

Getting Railroaded By The Rich

Ep. 205: March 11, 2011 - Overtime