Tag: Wealth

Israel

War on Gaza: What is Next after Genocide?

The unchallengeable truth coming out of Gaza speaks of daily planned bloodbath of the civilian population and forced displacement of 1.9 millions to make Gaza another occupied entity of Israel facilitating futuristic exploration of gas and oil in the Mediterranean region favoring Israel and the US interests. Is Israel attacking Gaza for oil and gas? There are reportedly huge gas and oil fields in Gaza and West Bank, reports Muhdan Saglam. Media reports disclose Israeli strategic plans to change the geography by creating another canal from Gulf Of Aqaba to undo the Suez Canal impacting Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan accessibility to the Red Sea.

Source: War on Gaza: What is Next after Genocide?

TAX

The millionaires who are begging to pay more tax

Brian Cox wants millionaires and billionaires to pay more tax.

Being a millionaire is just another small powerless voice in the land of the financial elite and powerful.  Of Course they’d support a qualified change of a 2% tax for those over $10M in investments to help the trickle-down that never occurred these past 50-plus years.  Only too happy to salvage a dying system rather than change it. It’s a bit of a cry by millionaires to ” Hey look over there” Billionaires and Trillionaires they need to give a lot more”. Millionaires already saw their taxes generously reduced and profits up by far more than 2% aren’t giving back anything they made in real terms.

It’s the structure of global corporations that needs to be changed from private to public and a real Future Fund established and they need to be taxed and the profits invested for our and a global common good. Can you imagine the Military Industrial Complex battling the war on poverty health and housing? Their shareholders need to feel the benefits of profit sharing and not feel it as a punishment tax simply because of their current lack of interest in contributing to a common good. Israel and its supporters currently need to be heavily punished and taxed. The Bhutanese on the other hand don’t as they already base their economy on ” Gross National Happiness”

A recent survey has found that nearly half of all millionaires from G20 countries think extreme wealth is a threat to democracy.

The survey was conducted by Survation on behalf of Patriotic Millionaires and found that three-quarters of those questioned supported higher taxes on wealth.

For the survey more than 2300 people from G20 countries with more than $1 million investable assets, excluding their homes, were polled.

The survey found 74 per cent were in support of higher taxes on wealth to aid the cost-of-living crisis and improve public services.

Some 75 per cent also support a two per cent wealth tax on billionaires being introduced, and 58 per cent support the tax for people with more than $10 million.

Additionally, 72 per cent believe extreme wealth can buy political influence and 54 per cent maintain that extreme wealth is a threat to democracy.

Source: The millionaires who are begging to pay more tax

Education

If you can read this (your lucky) … – » The Australian Independent Media Network

 

Greed is not good, whoever dies with the most toys doesn’t win and we all deserve to live in a compassionate society. Education of our children is too important to be a political football and using it as such disadvantages all of us. The sooner our political leaders realise that – the better off we all are.

Source: If you can read this … – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Privatisation Promises Jobs

Fighting Fake News with REAL, 19/5/2023; The Shovel, Truth in Humour, Wealth, What’s the Scam;

Justice

Santos loses landmark legal battle against Indigenous rights

Mining giant Santos has been ordered to shut down a major drilling operation after it was found that local Tiwi Islanders had not been consulted. Dr Binoy Kampmark reports.

Source: Santos loses landmark legal battle against Indigenous rights

UK

Royal Money: Charles III and the Wealth Dimension – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Crimes and misdemeanours in the Royal House,

Graham Smith, CEO of the activist group Republic, also filed a complaint against Charles along the same lines: that both he and his close aide and former valet, Michael Fawcett, had allegedly breached the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925. In the peculiar world of royal family relations, Fawcett made himself indispensable as chief squeezer of toothpaste onto the royal toothbrush when required. “I can manage without just about anyone, except for Michael,” Charles once stated.

A published email from Fawcett to an aide of bin Mafouz, written in 2017 as chief executive of the Dumfries House Trust, promised, “In light of the ongoing and most recent generosity of His Excellency… I am happy to confirm to you, in confidence, that we are willing and happy to contribute to the application for Citizenship.” An effort would also be made to apply “to increase His Excellency’s honour from Honorary CBE to that of KBE in accordance with Her Majesty’s Honour’s Committee.”

Charles, for his part, denies having any knowledge of the scheme, something considered risible by Baker. “The idea that Fawcett was running a rogue operation without telling [Charles] is simply unbelievable.” The issue of royal money and its inscrutable mysteries is unlikely to go away.

 

 

Source: Royal Money: Charles III and the Wealth Dimension – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Democracy

Revulsion Against Billionaire Wealth Isn’t About “Envy.” It’s About Democracy.

Rotterdam has been forced to walk back the dismantling of a historic bridge to make way for Jeff Bezos’s superyacht. But the incident is a reminder that billionaires’ obscene wealth isn’t just about hoarding resources — it’s also about undermining democracy.

Source: Revulsion Against Billionaire Wealth Isn’t About “Envy.” It’s About Democracy.

Informed Comment

Informed Comment- Robert Reich- Wealth-Inequality
Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought Phase 1 of Morrison’s Covid Plan evaluated below
May be a cartoon of text

Fighting Fake News with REAL 4/7/21; Cartoons, Scott Morrison Master of Confusion, Peter Dutton back in Boomgate, Wealth protection past the grave

Income Gap

Vintage year for the wealthy: COVID-19 widens gap between rich and poor – Michael West

Executive bonuses inflated by JobKeeper, rising property and share prices, tax cuts for the wealthy. What’s not to like about 2020 for the top end of town? Tasha May takes a closer look at how the pandemic is exacerbating wealth inequality in Australia.

Vintage year for the wealthy: COVID-19 widens gap between rich and poor – Michael West
Trump

Is Covid bankrupting Trump? – UnHerd

Screenshot_2020-04-03 Is Covid bankrupting Trump - UnHerd.pngTrump, so it goes, was too big to fail. Well here we go again. According to the Wall St Journal: “More than 500 staff at Trump properties in New York, Washington, Las Vegas and Florida have been laid off or furloughed, say people familiar with the matter and federal disclosures. Several Trump hotels have been closed, and those still running have experienced dwindling occupancies. One day in March, the family’s flagship Trump International Hotel in Washington had just 11 guests in its 263 rooms, according to an employee.”

via Is Covid bankrupting Trump? – UnHerd

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News, Uncategorized

Old Dog Thoughts- The IPA made a Statement and Morrison matched it. All we need to do is adjust.

Fighting Fake News with REAL,21/1/20; Inequality; Corporate Cuulture, Corporate Crime, Morrison and the IPA tinker with Climate;

Australia's Shame, Uncategorized

What the Bureau of Statistics didn’t highlight: our continuing upward redistribution of wealth – Michael West

What the Bureau of Statistics didn’t highlight: our continuing upward redistribution of wealth

We really need to know

Statistics are windows on change. Despite our criticisms, the bureau’s biennial income and wealth survey gives us the best view of inequality we’ve got, but large areas remain foggy.

In research for the Evatt Foundation, we have used data from the Bureau of Statistics, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and national accounts to estimate that, for the first time in more than half a century, the richest 10% of households own more than half of Australia’s private wealth.

Read more: There’s a reason you’re feeling no better off than 10 years ago. Here’s what HILDA says about well-being

The Evatt Foundation’s results seem to stand up well, but governments should really be producing better data themselves.

Inequality and its harmful effects on economic output and stability are growing. We owe it to ourselves to find out by how much.

via What the Bureau of Statistics didn’t highlight: our continuing upward redistribution of wealth – Michael West

Uncategorized, Wealth Abyss, Wealth Inequality

Report: World’s Richest Got 20% Richer in 2017

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.

via Report: World’s Richest Got 20% Richer in 2017

Corporate control

At the Heart of Global Woes, 157 of World’s 200 Richest Entities Are Now Corporations, Not Governments

From massive inequality to the climate crisis, these powerful corporations “are able to demand that governments do their bidding”

via At the Heart of Global Woes, 157 of World’s 200 Richest Entities Are Now Corporations, Not Governments

Informed Comment

Day to Day Politics: Ideology versus the Common Good – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Did you know that 10 per cent of Australians now hold more wealth than the other 90 per cent combined? Let me put it another way. The richest one per cent of Australians are collectively wealthier than the poorest 60 per cent. Or try this 62 mega-rich people across the globe now hold as much wealth as 3.6 billion of the world’s poorest. Try this. Australia’s richest person was worth $18 billion, equaling the wealth held by the poorest 10 per cent of Aussies.Here’s some more from an Oxfam report titled “An Economy for the 1%“: The world’s richest 1% now hold more wealth than the rest of the planet. The richest 10 per cent of Australians hold more wealth than the other 90 per cent combined. The gap between Australia’s richest and poorest is accelerating. In 2015, the wealth of Australia’s richest 1% outstripped the poorest 60%. Australia’s richest person is worth more than all of the wealth held by the poorest 10 per cent of Australians. Dr Szoke from Oxfam, the reports writer, said Australia must be part of a global solution to a global problem, and a renewed international focus on corporate tax avoidance would be critical to efforts to address wealth inequality.So isn’t it odd that the Turnbull Government is contemplating increasing the rate of its consumer tax in order to give the same companies a reduction in the amount of tax they pay. Figure that out.

Source: Day to Day Politics: Ideology versus the Common Good – » The Australian Independent Media Network

inequality

From between the census lines emerges a picture of the great wealth divide | Nicholas Biddle and Francis Markham | Australia news | The Guardian

If income inequality feeds disparities across generations, policies should encourage different social classes to share neighbourhoods and regions

Source: From between the census lines emerges a picture of the great wealth divide | Nicholas Biddle and Francis Markham | Australia news | The Guardian

Australia

We’re richer, but sicker and less equal, according to the Lateral Economics Index of Wellbeing

Is life getting better in Australia? Not on some important measures, according to the latest Wellbeing Index.

Source: We’re richer, but sicker and less equal, according to the Lateral Economics Index of Wellbeing

Racism

It’s Racism, Stupid. America’s Persistent Racial Wealth Divide

By Josh Hoxie | ( Inequality.org ) | – – A new study shows the legacy of racism far outweighs …

Source: It’s Racism, Stupid. America’s Persistent Racial Wealth Divide

Obscene

Eight men share fortune of 3.6 billion people – PravdaReport

In 2015, Bill Gates’ fortune was evaluated at $83.6 billion. Mexican telecommunications tycoon has suffered largest losses among the billionaires, whose fortunes were included on the list

Source: Eight men share fortune of 3.6 billion people – PravdaReport

Global inequality

Eight men own same wealth as poorest half of world’s population, Oxfam reveals – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Just eight men own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population, a new Oxfam report reveals.

Source: Eight men own same wealth as poorest half of world’s population, Oxfam reveals – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Economy, Uncategorized

The wealthy don’t create jobs
Banks, Corporate Crime

Source: Süddeutsche.de

USA

Where the Richest Americans Live in 2015 – Fortune

Source: Where the Richest Americans Live in 2015 – Fortune

USA

The Richest People in America List – Forbes

The forbes 400 is the definitive list of wealth in america, profiling and ranking the country’s richest billionaires by their estimated net worths.

Source: The Richest People in America List – Forbes

Jose Mujica

Poorest World Leader

inequality, Injustice

Bernie Sanders Goes Biblical on Income Inequality | It’s Easter let’s get serious Joe Hockey

Bernie Sanders Goes Biblical on Income Inequality | Mother Jones.

Money

BBC News – Does money make you mean?

Giving money

BBC News – Does money make you mean?.

Politics

Calls for Social Justice Abound at the Oscars – Truthdig

Calls for Social Justice Abound at the Oscars – Truthdig.

Mental Illness

The age of loneliness is killing us. A world of increasing mental ill health is our ISIS

Man sitting on a bench under a tree

So what’s the point? What do we gain from this war of all against all? Competition drives growth, but growth no longer makes us wealthier. Figures published this week show that, while the income of company directors has risen by more than a fifth, wages for the workforce as a whole have fallen in real terms over the past year. The bosses earn – sorry, I mean take – 120 times more than the average full-time worker. (In 2000, it was 47 times). And even if competition did make us richer, it would make us no happier, as the satisfaction derived from a rise in income would be undermined by the aspirational impacts of competition.

The top 1% own 48% of global wealth, but even they aren’t happy. A survey by Boston College of people with an average net worth of $78m found that they too were assailed by anxiety, dissatisfaction and loneliness. Many of them reported feeling financially insecure: to reach safe ground, they believed, they would need, on average, about 25% more money. (And if they got it? They’d doubtless need another 25%). One respondent said he wouldn’t get there until he had $1bn in the bank.

For this, we have ripped the natural world apart, degraded our conditions of life, surrendered our freedoms and prospects of contentment to a compulsive, atomising, joyless hedonism, in which, having consumed all else, we start to prey upon ourselves. For this, we have destroyed the essence of humanity: our connectedness.

Yes, there are palliatives, clever and delightful schemes like Men in Sheds and Walking Football developed by charities for isolated older people. But if we are to break this cycle and come together once more, we must confront the world-eating, flesh-eating system into which we have been forced.

Hobbes’s pre-social condition was a myth. But we are entering a post-social condition our ancestors would have believed impossible. Our lives are becoming nasty, brutish and long.

Abbott, Australian Economy

So where is the crisis Mr Abbott???

Illustration by John Shakespeare (image from smh.com.au)Australia is still the richest nation . . . But don’t celebrate just yet

Australia remains the richest country in the world according to the annual wealth report from Credit Suisse released this week. The ascendancy Australia gained during the global financial crisis (GFC) has been easily maintained, although fortunes have varied widely elsewhere. Quite the opposite according to Tony and Joe.

The median wealth of Aussie adults increased from US$219,500 last year to $225,300. Belgium is second, well back on $173,000. Then follow Italy, France, the UK, Switzerland, Japan and Singapore.

Australia has not always been the richest nation. It topped the table during the global financial crisis, thus bolstering the view of Joseph Stiglitz, Tim Harcourt and others that Australia handled the GFC particularly well.

In 2008, Australia ranked sixth in the world on median wealth behind Luxembourg, Iceland, Belgium, Italy and France. Through 2009, as the global financial crisis devastated most developed economies, Australia rose to second behind clear leader Luxembourg, with Belgium a close third. The others fell well back.

By 2010, Australia was within a fraction of a percentage point of Luxembourg, which it overtook to lead the world in 2011. Through 2012 Australia moved further ahead, leading Luxembourg, Japan, Italy, Belgium and the UK. By 2013 Australia’s median wealth had rocketed to US$219,500 per adult, leaving Luxembourg, France, Italy, the UK and Norway well behind.

Over the 14 years since the turn of the century, Credit Suisse calculates household wealth in Australia grew at an average annual rate of 11%, despite the GFC.