Category: Sharing Wealth

Wealth of three richest Australians has doubled since 2020 as cost-of-living pressures for many continue to bite – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Oxfam is calling on the Australian Government to rapidly and radically reduce the gap between the super-rich and the rest of society by fixing the broken tax system. This should include:

  • Immediately scrapping the stage-three tax cuts, which will deepen inequality, increase inflation and fail to respond to the current challenges of the cost-of-living crisis for low and middle-income households.
  • Better taxing wealth, including implementing a progressive wealth tax of 2-5% on Australian multi-millionaires and billionaires, which could generate $32.36 billion dollars each year. With this tax revenue, Australia could simultaneously increase the aid budget to meet the rate development experts believe is fair for a country of our size and build over 75,000 houses annually to address the housing crisis in Australia.
  • Implementing a permanent windfall profits tax on big corporations, so that when crises hit, corporations can’t profiteer as they did during the pandemic. Oxfam research in July 2023 revealed 722 mega-corporations raked in $1.5 trillion a year in windfall profits in 2021 and 2022 globally. Here in Australia, many corporations landed superprofits, including Woolworths, Santos and Woodside.
  • Ending fossil fuel subsidies, which mostly benefit big corporations making super profits. In 2022-23, the government provided $11.1 billion in fossil fuel subsidies – money far better spent on tackling the climate crisis.

Source: Wealth of three richest Australians has doubled since 2020 as cost-of-living pressures for many continue to bite – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The Obscenely Wealthy Have Recently Experienced Obscene Increases in Their Wealth – CounterPunch.org

These policies have certainly been successful at creating greater prosperity for the 10 wealthiest people in the United States. Their wealth, after a large decline in 2022, is now almost 24% greater than it was at the beginning of 2021, right before the start of Biden’s presidency. (see second table below)

Source: The Obscenely Wealthy Have Recently Experienced Obscene Increases in Their Wealth – CounterPunch.org

US Billionaires Got 70% More Wealth Under COVID. They Didn’t Deserve Any of It.

New data shows that Elon Musk’s fortune grew by 750% during the pandemic. It’s not because he worked 750% harder than the rest of us.

Source: US Billionaires Got 70% More Wealth Under COVID. They Didn’t Deserve Any of It.

‘Eye-Popping’: Analysis Shows Top 1% Gained $21 Trillion in Wealth Since 1989 While Bottom Half Lost $900 Billion | Common Dreams News

Adding to the mountain of statistical evidence showing the severity of U.S. inequality, an analysis published Friday found that the top one percent of Americans gained $21 trillion in wealth since 1989 while the bottom 50 percent lost $900 billion.

via ‘Eye-Popping’: Analysis Shows Top 1% Gained $21 Trillion in Wealth Since 1989 While Bottom Half Lost $900 Billion | Common Dreams News

The Guardian view on the 1%: democracy or oligarchy? | Editorial | Opinion | The Guardian

A waiter pours a glass of sparkling wine at a display of luxury yachts, at the London Boat Show

the landmark World Inequality Report, a data-rich project maintained by more than 100 researchers in more than 70 countries, found that the richest 1% reaped 27% of the world’s income between 1980 and 2016. The bottom half of humanity, by contrast, got 12%. While the very poorest people have benefited in the last 40 years, it is the extremely rich who’ve emerged as the big winners. China’s economic rise has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty but the wealth share held by the nation’s top 1% doubled from 15% to 30%. Such has been the concentration of wealth in India and Russia that inequality not seen since the time of the Raj and the tsar has reappeared. By 2030, the report warns, just 250 people could own 1.5% of all the wealth in the world.

via The Guardian view on the 1%: democracy or oligarchy? | Editorial | Opinion | The Guardian

Centrelink bogus debts: How far can the vulnerable be pushed before they break?

The Centrelink #notmydebt fiasco is simply ongoing government oppression of society’s most vulnerable, writes Jade Manson.

Source: Centrelink bogus debts: How far can the vulnerable be pushed before they break?

By Sharing Prosperity Most Evenly, Norway Wins Again

For the 12th year in a row, Norway has earned the honor of being listed as the best country in the world to live. The ranking appears in the United Nations Development Programme’s 2015 Human Development Report. The agency uses the Human Development Index (HDI) to score nearly 200 countries on factors including life expectancy at birth, average years of schooling, and gross national income per capita.

Source: By Sharing Prosperity Most Evenly, Norway Wins Again | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community