Tag: wealth gap
Remember 1992 the CBA ads “Which Bank?” It was advertising regarded as unneeded irresponsible marketing of DEBT and it was told to stop. Unrequired debt became the standard product for sale to Australia’s lowest 20% and middle 40% and sold for discretionary spending and the money spent flowed into the coffers of the top 20%. The debt accumulated by ordinary Australians was encouraged by the last decade of LNP policies but it was for necessities for an increasing number of families in precarious employment while at the top a minority were organized to invest in hoovering it up. Payday lenders grew like topsy and were even advertising on TV ready to lend to those that banks no longer would with bank money.
The LNP almost looked socialist throwing money at QANTAS and Harvey Norman and cutting the taxes of those earning $180,000 plus while refusing to help those that really needed it. Unlike the ALP during the GFC there was no money put directly into the accounts of the suffering poor they could borrow and pay the Shylock price.
This isn’t a new cycle it’s one we’ve seen time and time again and Australia leads the world living life in debt and we create every opportunity for bottom feeders to create more. Who the fuck is putting all that coke up their nose it ain’t the bottom half of the nation at $300 a gram it’s the debtless and those that debt don’t even touch the sides. There is a system in place that encourages the debt cycle to flourish and increase again and again..
ANZ deputy chief economist Diana Mousina said pandemic savings were now being drawn down, and at the current pace those savings will be depleted by September
Source: National accounts: Households using up savings as interest bills skyrocket
Social Fact: However it doesn’t indicate the level of opportunity and equality that exists moving forward. Better than America is a meaningless standard in 2023.
America may bill itself as the land of opportunity, but new treasury research says Australians are more likely to climb the socio-economic ladder from poverty to relative wealth.
Source: Income mobility: Australia provides more opportunity than the US to scale the income ladder
The spread of COVID-19 anywhere on the planet threatens us all, yet Big Pharma’s monopoly on the vaccine supply ensures that people in most of the world aren’t getting inoculated. In this appeal, left-wing figures like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Rafael Correa, and former Brazilian president Lula call on governments to lift the patents and ensure vaccines are distributed as cheaply and quickly as possible.
Get Rid of the Patents on COVID-19 Vaccines Already
Disappointingly, rich countries today behave as though they will reach 100% vaccination rates before they give away a single dose, with many having bought well in excess of what is needed for 100% coverage.
The big barriers to global vaccination: patent rights, national self-interest and the wealth gap
We should exit the pandemic and the economic chaos of these months with less inequality, not a further entrenched oligarchy.
via U.S. Billionaire Wealth Surges as Covid-19 Pandemic Worsens | The Smirking Chimp
Widening income and wealth gap.(ODT)
Middle-class Australians are being squeezed into lower incomes or absolute poverty at some of the fastest rates in the developed world, according to a new international report that warns of the growing threats from job automation.
Ahead of an election campaign that will be dominated by appeals to a “fair go” and “equality”, a report from the OECD released on Thursday said high-income earners in Australia were grabbing a larger share of national income, leaving less for the rest.
via Is life getting tougher? The squeeze facing Australia’s middle class
Astronomical gap between the pay of workers and bosses exposed in report on earnings of America’s top 350 CEOs
The Maoist Revolution in China was inspired by tesesorts of numbers. (ODT)
US bosses now earn 312 times the average worker’s wage, figures show | Business | The Guardian
It says the richest 20% of Australian households own 62% of all wealth, while the lowest 50% own just 18%. The average household wealth in the highest 20% group is $2.9m, five times that of the middle 20% and almost a hundred times that of the lowest 20% at $30,000.
A U.N.-supported human rights expert has blasted the yawning gap between rich and poor in the United States, insisting in a new report that the world’s richest country “is now moving full steam ahead to make itself even more unequal.”
The United Nations’ human rights office said Monday that Philip Alston, an independent expert commissioned to examine “extreme” poverty, prepared a report on the U.S. that faults “successive administrations” in Washington for failing to uphold treaty commitments to economic and social rights.
The Australian-born New York University law professor specifically criticized the $1.5 trillion worth of income tax cuts that President Donald Trump has trumpeted as a key accomplishment of his administration, saying the plan approved in December “benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality.”
via U.N. Expert Calls U.S. Income Inequality a ‘Political Choice’
Wealth inequality is even greater than income inequality and is on the rise, says new report
via Use inheritance tax to tackle inequality of wealth, says OECD | Inequality | The Guardian
The trickle up effect of tax free businesses doing the work welfare work of the state
Meanwhile, few who make the “I did it all myself” argument question the absurdity of seeing earnings as a measure of grit and moral worth. Does anyone really think that a CEO, whose pay is on average 271 times greater than that of his typical worker, works 271 times harder than his employees, who might actually be doing strenuous physical labor?
via What’s behind rich people pretending to be self-made? | US news | The Guardian
At last, novel solutions are entering politics! Mike Dowson considers the “Buffet Rule”, for catching wealthy tax-evaders.
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
The stereotype of a dependent generation who won’t leave home ignores the many reasons adult family members choose to live together in the one house.
Readers take Tom Switzer to task over his column supporting the former PM.
Source: John Howard: Corporate interests were given top billing
Pay ratios are an important measure of income inequality over time and regulators should look at making them mandatory
TeleSur | – – Soon, researchers predict, the middle class will no longer be the largest class in the United …
Source: Aside from Super-Rich, All Americans are poorer this century | Informed Comment
Thursday 21 January 2016 1 The growing curse of inequality. 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…
Source: Day to Day Politics ‘That’s a bit Rich Mate’ – » The Australian Independent Media Network
A report from Peking University warns that China has reached a
Source: Life is unfair: The top 1% now owns one-third of Chinese wealth: Shanghaiist
Shocking new report on wealth inequality actually understates the truth
Source: Wealthiest 12 Americans Own More Than Bottom Half | Al Jazeera America
In an attempt to show that politicians were sharing the pain of the 2014 Budget, Tony Abbott announced a freeze on politicians’ pay rises. Needless to say, that didn’t last long. Federal politicians, judges and top bureaucrats received a 2 per cent pay rise from January 1 this year. Malcolm Turnbull will pocket over $10,000…
Source: People of calibre – » The Australian Independent Media Network
New research from the IMF says unions reduces inequality, fosters and healthier economy and are essential for a well-functioning democracy.
Source: Unions decrease inequality, strengthen democracy and improve the economy
The Trickle Down Effect that Just didn’t Trickle The Bailout worked with a trickle up
If You Own a Pitchfork, You Will Grab It When You See This Chart | Mother Jones.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/15/who_goes_to_jail_matt_taibbi
Mathias Corman says the CBA fraud is all in the past and should be forgotten. Joe Hockey allows evasion to proceed after promising to go after it. In the world of an increasing wealth gap our courts process and jail the minnows of our community and allow the whales to swim off unpunished. Abbott has appointed Scott Morrison to police the poor and disabled. Who polices the top end of town?
This story was originally published on BillMoyers.com.
Global inequality, like global warming, is a disease that may be too far along to ever be cured.
We seem helpless, both in the US and around the world, to stop the incessant flow of wealth to an elitist group of people who are simply building on their existing riches. The increasing rate of their takeaway is the message derived from the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook (GWD).
It’s already been made clear that the richest Americans have taken almost all the gains in US wealth since the recession. But the unrelenting money grab is a global phenomenon. The GWD confirms just how bad it’s getting for the great majority of us.
1. US: Even the upper middle class is losing
In just three years, from 2011 to 2014, the bottom half of Americans lost almost half of their share of the nation’s wealth, dropping from a 2.5 percent share to a 1.3 percent share (detail is here).
Most of the top half lost ground, too. The 36 million upper middle class households just above the median (sixth, seventh, and eighth deciles) dropped from a 13.4 percent share to an 11.9 percent share. Much of their portion went to the richest one percent.
This is big money. With total US wealth of $84 trillion, the three-year change represents a transfer of wealth of over a trillion dollars from the bottom half of America to the richest one percent, and another trillion dollars from the upper middle class to the one percent.
2. US: In three years, an average of $5 million went to every household in the one percent
A closer look at the numbers shows the frightening extremes. The bottom half of America, according to GWD, owned $1.5 trillion in 2011. Now their wealth is down to $1.1 trillion. Much of their wealth is in housing equity, which was depleted by the recession.
The richest Americans, on the other hand, took incomprehensible amounts of wealth from the rest of us, largely by being already rich, and by being heavily invested in the stock market. The following summary is based on GWD figures and reliable estimates of the makeup of the richest one percent, and on the fact that almost all the nation’s wealth is in the form of private households and business assets:
- In three years the average household in the top one percent (just over a million households) increased its net worth by about $4.5 million.
- In three years the average household in the top .1 percent (just over 100,000 households) increased its net worth by about $18 million.
- In three years the average household in the top .01 percent (12,000 households) increased its net worth by about $180 million.
- In three years the average member of the Forbes 400 increased his/her net worth by about $2 billion.
3. World: The one percent’s wealth grew from $100 trillion to $127 trillion in three years
A stunning 95 percent of the world’s population lost a share of its wealth over the past three years. Almost all of the gain went to the world’s richest one percent.
Again, the gains seem almost incomprehensible. The world’s wealth grew from $224 trillion to $263 trillion in three years. The world’s richest one percent, who owned a little under $100 trillion in 2011, now own almost $127 trillion. For every dollar they possessed just three years ago, they now have a dollar and a quarter.
From New York and LA and San Francisco to London and Kenya and Indonesia, the rich are pushing suffering populations out of the way to acquire land and build luxury homes. The “winner-take-all” attitude is breaking down society in the US and around the world.
More Madness
There’s a lot more in the GWD, and it doesn’t get any prettier. It tells us what unregulated capitalism does to a society.
In an upcoming post, we’ll consider what has to be done to end the madness.
olddogthoughts 
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