inequality

Friedrich von Hayek could best be described as the father of modern neoliberalist economics – the slash and burn policies that have cut taxes, maximized corporate profits, and widened inequality to levels not seen since The Gilded Age.

Have you heard? Goldman Sachs is “a shell of its former self.” Fortunately for its executives, this “shell” earned $8.91 billion in 2013, just a few short years after its leaders mismanaged it into the ground as its bankers committed serial fraud.

In plain yet powerful language, Pope Francis is challenging the givens of our deeply unequal world — and helping inspire resistance to it.
Sometimes you don’t have to say anything “new” to make news. Consider, for instance, the “apostolic exhortation” the Vatican released last Tuesday.
This statement from Pope Francis, observers

As we enter into yet another round of budget discussions, the Democratic Party is confronted with an opportunity – and a challenge. There’s an opportunity to shift the budget debate to an area where they hold the high ground. But it will be a challenge for some Democrats to take the initiative on a subject they seem reluctant to discuss. The subject is taxes.

An analysis released today of the effects of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement concludes that “most workers are likely to lose” as a result of the agreement, and that what the economy will gain as a whole “amounts to a rounding error.”

First of all, who are they? Mostly the 1 percent. But the top 2-5 percent have also done quite well, increasing their inflation-adjusted wealth by 75 percent from 1983 to 2009 while average wealth went down for 80 percent of American households.

In a delicious turn of terrible-for-us events, a website created by McDonald’s to help its employees create a monthly budget may have just become the prime example of how difficult it is to live off a minimum wage paycheck. Step #1: Get a second full-time minimum wage job. Seriously.

America is the richest country on Earth. We have the most millionaires, the most billionaires and our wealthiest citizens have garnered more of the planet’s riches than any other group in the world. We even have hedge fund managers who make in one hour as much as the average family makes in 21 years!

The lawsuit filed declares the incident was racial discrimination and seeks punitive damages for civil rights violations and emotional distress. The men described the experience as shocking, confusing and humiliating.

Inequality in America grows more extreme each day. The richest 400 Americans, for example, increased their wealth by 54 percent between 2005 and 2010, while the median middle-class family saw its wealth decline by 35 percent.