Strikes me that this is an excuse for the wealth gap to be ignored. Money does buy relief from worry while debt certainly doesn’t buy happiness. Happiness and money simply don’t always correlate.
So, unless you’re really poor, don’t kid yourself that more money will make you a lot happier.
Source: Wellbeing: Breaking news – money does buy happiness*
All the World Economic Forum’s Davos panels and the combined philanthropy of the world’s more than 2,755 billionaires have failed so far to vaccinate the world’s poor. That’s why a broad, global coalition has formed calling for the world’s governments to tax the rich. “It is time to levy a wealth tax on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires,” Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Fight Inequality Alliance, wrote, introducing their “Taxing Extreme Wealth” report. “This is not to simply raise revenue to vaccinate the world and invest in robust public health systems. But a wealth tax that is intended to save democracy from the extreme concentrations of wealth and power.” A graduated wealth tax on people with $5 million or more would raise $2.5 trillion annually, the report calculates. Those funds could pay to contain this pandemic, invest in public health to prevent the next one, and lift millions out of poverty. Tax the rich.
Source: Global Wealth Inequality Is Deadly | The Smirking Chimp
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.
Despite its glittering promises, the neoliberal social order has delivered loneliness, alienation and anxiety. Along with stupendous wealth for a few, we have witnessed rising inequality between the asset-owning class and the rest. Unequal societies produce higher rates of chronic stress, anxiety and depression as well as other pernicious effects in public health, education and social mobility. A fairer, more egalitarian society that nurtured human flourishing, and was built on care of its people and environment, would have little need for resilience and positivity mandates.
Source: Focus on individual wellbeing doesn’t help | Angela Smith | The Guardian
Why COVID is a boon for the rich and a bane for the poor
As millions of people around the world lost their jobs, billionaires increased their wealth by 27.5% between April and July.
Why COVID is a boon for the rich and a bane for the poor
New research from the Economic Policy Institute finds that CEO compensation grew by 1,167% from 1978 to 2019, “far outstripping” the growth of the stock market.
As Wages Stagnate and Executive Pay ‘Continues to Balloon,’ Report Shows Top CEOs Now Make 320 Times More Than Typical Worker | Common Dreams News
But Trump will tell you the Stock Market= America is booming (ODT)
via Filthy Rich: How America’s Unprecedented Inequality is Literally Killing Us
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.
A report published recently by Swiss bank UBS shows the world’s wealthiest are now worth $9.1 trillion, enough to spend $1 million per day for 30,000 years.
In 2017, more than 2,000 billionaires around the world became even wealthier, pushing their collective fortunes to historic levels. According to a report recently published by Swiss bank UBS and accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), no other year in recorded history, including the industrial revolution and the Gilded Age, has seen such a massive increase in wealth of the global elite.
Just over 2,150 people have seen their wealth increase by 20 percent, many doing so through various forms of inheritance and asset transfers.
many of our world’s wealthiest look at those fossil fuels and see no danger. They see the present and future source of their personal wealth. A significant chunk of the world’s billionaires owe their billions, directly or indirectly, to extractive industries. Keeping fossil fuels buried would jeopardize those billions, and our super rich have the political power, thanks to their wealth, to insist that we keep extracting.
If we let that wealth and power continue to concentrate, fossil fuels will continue to burn.
via With Rich pro-Carbon, only empowered Workers can Stop Climate Armageddon
The global population of UHNW people, classed as those with more than $30m (£23m) in assets, increased by 12.9% last year to a record 255,810 people, according to a report by research firm Wealth-X.
Only 13.7% of UHNW individuals are women, but the number of women grew by 30% outstripping the 10% rate of growth for men. The study predicts that the size of the ultra-rich population will continue to increase, with the number of UHNW individuals expected to grow to 360,000 by 2022.
via Booming global stock markets swell ranks of the super rich | Business | The Guardian
The income survey data show an even more mixed record. The Our World in Data database shows that by 2003 the real income of the median Australian household was only about 5% higher in real terms than in 1989, while the second and third decile households – mainly headed by those on low wages and some on social security – were actually no better-off than in 1989, largely due to the effects of the early 1990s recession.
Despite the way it’s been spun, the Commission’s main message is that in the decades ahead we will need both policies that generate economic growth and policies that ensure it’s well spread. One without the other could leave many of us worse off.
via Don’t believe what they say about inequality. Some of us are worse off
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
Amongst credible economists and political leaders (so, not including Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison), it is universally accepted that Australia, like most other developed economies, has a wealth and income inequality problem. There are books and essays being written and read every minute about why this problem exists, but let me simplify in the words…
Source: What is a worker? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The report found that HNWIs earned average returns of 24.3% on their portfolios that were overseen by a wealth manager in 2016. This compares with average interest rates of just 0.35% offered by instant-access high street bank accounts, according to the Bank of England.
If the policies favored by the Trump administration—including massive tax cuts for the rich and reductions in spending on Medicaid and education—go into effect, the U.S. will only fall further in the global rankings
Source: US Inequality Crisis Worst in Industrialized World. Trump Will Make It Worse. | Common Dreams
TeleSur | – – Even though the rising inequality is a global phenomenon, it is especially pronounced in the United …
Source: 3 mn will own 70% of US Wealth generated by 320 mn by 2021 | Informed Comment
‘Middle Australia’ earns much less than the government would have you believe and women continue to earn much less than men
The CEO has tripled his remuneration, and the board want a 50 per cent pay rise, but that’s OK. Crown Resort’s largest shareholder, James Packer, can now help vote through the pay bonanza.
Source: James Packer may determine Crown Resorts board’s 50 per cent pay rise
The next time someone says America is broke and we have to cut spending, ask them if they approve of their tax dollars subsidizing CEO pay.
Source: REVEALED: This Crazy Loophole Forces Taxpayers to Fund CEO Pay
By James Moylan Nobody likes homelessness. It’s not something anyone would choose to do, or choose to inflict on someone else. But we have no option. The very survival of our nation and a way of life depends on it. After all: houses are first and foremost an asset. Just because it is an asset…
Source: A plea on behalf of rich property owners – » The Australian Independent Media Network
We will rue the day we did not use this period of ultra-low interest rates to invest in infrastructure and put our people to work
A barely reported speech delivered recently by a Labor MP reveals the party is moving towards a more radical position on the thorny issue of competition. Despite the shrieks from the business lobby, it’s not really about them, writes Ben Eltham. “ALP ramps up its war on business,” screamed the headline today in The Australian. AccordingMore
Source: Labor Is At War With Inequality, Not Business – New Matilda
As global wealth concentrates in fewer hands, the world’s wealthy are shifting trillions to offshore havens to escape taxation, accountability, and publicity.
Source: The Panama Papers Expose the Hidden Wealth of the World’s Super-Rich | The Nation
The top 1 per cent of Australian earners amassed an extraordinary 9 per cent of Australian income in 2013, the highest proportion since the 1950s.
Source: They get $438k, you get just $48k: figures show the uber-rich are earning more and more
The uber-wealthy face a bevy of headwinds including succession and inheritance issues, higher taxes and a potential slowdown in the global economy, a report says.
Source: Why it’s getting harder to be one of the world’s wealthiest people
Liam McLoughlin is ‘calling bullsh *t’ on sustained government efforts to increase the gap between rich and poor. I do not believe we are living in a democracy anymore. We are living in a plutocracy in Australia. That is, government by the wealthy in the interests of the wealthy. -Former Greens Leader Christine Milne. EconomicMore
Source: The Reverse Robin Hood: Tax ‘Reform’ In The Age Of Oligarchy – New Matilda
There is a four letter word politicians hate – and it isn’t what you might think.
Source: The four-letter word you won’t hear spoken by politicians
(ZEROHEDGE) Back in September 2012 we first presented “the world’s biggest hedge fund nobody had ever heard of”: a small, previously unknown company called Braeburn Capital which, however, managed more cash than even Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund. How had the little …
Source: How the Rothschilds Use America to Dodge Billions in Taxes AnonHQ
As the ongoing occupation of Wall Street by hundreds of protesters enters its third week — and as protests spread to other cities such as Boston and Los A
A progressive era saved us from the robber barons and it can save us now, argues the former secretary of labor
Source: Robert Reich: America is trapped in a vicious wealth cycle – Salon.com
Well, global wealth inequality is up. Again. Oxfam had stated in January of this year that the 1% wealthiest people controlled 48% of the world’s wealth in 2014. They had predicted that this percentage would rise to 50% by NEXT year. Well, it’s two months …
The moneyed elite is, as you may have guessed, pretty pale.
Source: America’s 100 Richest People Control More Wealth Than the Entire Black Population | Mother Jones
“The actual global checks and balances that might have once achieved the kind of reasonable equality that occurred after the Second World War have broken down; they’re not coping with the kind of way that business is down by the very fast moving global economy, by the sort of digital world that we live in one way or the other,” she said.
Oxfam said it would call for action to tackle rising inequality at the Davos meeting, which starts on Wednesday, including a crackdown on tax dodging by corporations and progress towards a global deal on climate change.
“The reason that this should be raised at a forum like Davos, is that inevitably with the concentration of wealth comes the concentration of power, and what we need are governments to be operating in the interests of the poorest as well as the richest,” Dr Szoke said.
“At the moment in our domestic context, and in many other contexts, [the burden of tax] falls on labour and consumption. We’re saying if you have this concentration of wealth, we really need to look at capital and wealth tax.
“So, stop the dodging, make sure that there are fair taxes that are paid by people, but then we also need to look actually look at how those taxes are used, and that really goes back to the issues of what are the social structures that are put in place that are the safety net
for people across the world, like a minimum income guarantee.
“Horrifyingly, we are a long way off that.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations has warned that unemployment will rise by 11 million in the next five years due to slower growth and turbulence.
More than 212 million people will be jobless by 2019 against the current level of 201 million, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said.
“The global economy is continuing to grow at tepid rates and that has clear consequences,” ILO head Guy Ryder said in Geneva.
“The global jobs gap due to the crisis stands at 61 million jobs worldwide,” he said, referring to the number of jobs lost since the start of the financial crisis in 2008.
The ILO World Employment and Social Outlook – Trends 2015 report said an extra 280 million jobs would have to be created by 2019 to close the gap created by the financial turmoil.
“This means the jobs crisis is far from over and there is no place for complacency,” Mr Ryder said.
The job scenario improved in the United States, Japan and Britain but remained worrisome in several developed economies of Europe, the report said.
“The austerity trajectory… in Europe in particular has contributed dramatically to increases in unemployment,” Mr Ryder said.
The report said eurozone powerhouse Germany could see unemployment rise to 5 per cent in 2017 against 4.7 per cent at present, while it was expected to fall just under the double-digit in number two eurozone economy France.
The worst-hit segment globally were those aged between 15 and 24, with the youth unemployment rate touching 13 per cent last year, almost three times the rate for adults.
The UN agency said the steep fall in oil and gas prices would hit the labour market hard in producing countries in Latin America, Africa and the Arab world.
But one of the rare bits of good news was that the middle class comprised more than 34 per cent of total employment in developing countries from 20 per cent in the 1990s, Mr Ryder said.
However, extreme poverty continues to affect one out of 10 workers globally who earn less than $1.50 a day, he added.
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