Tax Our Wealth, Super-rich Tell Politicians at Davos

THE GUARDIAN: Abigail Disney, Brian Cox and Valerie Rockefeller among signatories of open letter condemning inequality

Left to right: Brian Cox as Logan Roy, Abigail Disney and Valerie Rockefeller Photograph: various
More than 250 billionaires and millionaires are demanding that the political elite meeting for the World Economic Forum in Davos introduce wealth taxes to help pay for better public services around the world.

“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” the wealthy people said in an open letter to world leaders. “This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”

The rich signatories from 17 countries include Disney heir Abigail Disney; Brian Cox who played fictional billionaire Logan Roy in Succession; actor and screenwriter Simon Pegg; and Valerie Rockefeller , an heir to the US dynasty.

“We are also the people who benefit most from the status quo,” they said in a letter titled Proud to Pay, which they will attempt to deliver to world leaders gathered in Davos in Switzerland on Wednesday. “But inequality has reached a tipping point, and its cost to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk is severe – and growing every day. In short, we need action now.” » | Rupert Neate, Wealth correspondent | Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Gap between Haves and Have-nots Widening, Report Warns

BBC: The growing gap between the UK's "haves and have-nots" is in danger of becoming a "chasm", a report has warned.

Research by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) think tank argues the most disadvantaged are no better off than they were 15 years ago.

It mentioned stagnant wages, family breakdown, poor housing, crime, mental health and other issues, saying the gap widened during the pandemic.

Ministers highlighted the support to help with the rising cost of living.

The report by the CSJ's Social Justice Commission says the country is at risk of slipping back to a social divide not seen since the Victorian era. » | BBC | Saturday, December 9, 2023

This is what happens to a society when greed is allowed to be its driver! It is a direct consequence of years of Thatcherism and thirteen plus years of Tory rule. – © Mark Alexander

A Warning from 1994 of a Two-tiered Society | Robert Reich

Nov 21, 2023 | In 1994, I took a lot of heat for this speech warning that the American middle class was in danger. That was 29 years ago this week. Watch and tell me if I was wrong.

New York Is Rebounding for the Rich. Nearly Everyone Else Is Struggling.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The huge income gap between rich and poor in Manhattan is the latest sign that the economic recovery from the pandemic has been lopsided in New York City.

As New York City inches closer to recovering all the jobs it lost during the pandemic, Manhattan — the city’s economic engine — marked a far less encouraging milestone. It now has the biggest income gap of any large county in the country.

Even in a city notorious for tableaus of luxury living beside crushing poverty, the widening gap is striking. The wealthiest fifth of Manhattanites earned an average household income of $545,549, or more than 53 times as much as the bottom 20 percent, who earned an average of $10,259, according to 2022 census data, released earlier this month. Social Explorer, a demographic data firm, analyzed the data for The Times.

“It’s amazingly unequal,” said Andrew Beveridge, the president of Social Explorer. “It’s a larger gap than in many developing countries,” and the widest gulf in the United States since 2006, when the data was first reported. The Bronx and Brooklyn were also among the top 10 counties in the country in terms of income inequality.

It is the latest data to underscore the city’s lopsided rebound from the pandemic. Across the city, wages are up, but mostly for the affluent. Jobs are returning, but many are in low-paying positions. Unemployment is down, but remains sharply higher for Black and Hispanic New Yorkers. The mixed signals highlight a widening chasm: The city is recovering, but many of its residents are not. » | Stefanos Chen | Thursday, September 28, 2023

Disney Heiress Leads Call for Tax on ‘Super-rich’

THE TELEGRAPH: Campaign for minimum global tax aims to address a ‘rise in extreme inequality’

Abigail Disney is one of 300 people who signed a letter calling for ‘international collaboration’ to ‘raise taxes on the richest individuals’ CREDIT: JP Yim/Getty Images
An heiress to the Disney empire has led calls for a tax on the “super-rich”, accusing the world’s wealthiest of creating an “economic, ecological, and human rights disaster”.

Abigail Disney, who has previously said she feels such guilt at being born rich that she struggles to sleep, is among the signatories of a letter sent to leaders of the G20 nations ahead of the summit later this week.

The letter, which has been signed by 300 people including the film director Richard Curtis, US politician Bernie Sanders and Labour MPs, said: “Decades of falling taxes on the richest, based on the false promise that the wealth at the top would somehow benefit us all, has contributed to the rise in extreme inequality.

“Our political choices allow ultra-wealthy individuals to continue to use tax shelters and enjoy preferential treatment to the extent that, in most countries in the world, they pay lower tax rates than ordinary people.” » | Tim Wallace | Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Verwandt.

Top Economists Call for Action on Runaway Global Inequality

THE GUARDIAN: Gulf between rich and poor increases risk of climate breakdown as well as entrenches poverty, says letter to UN and World Bank

Failure to tackle the widening gulf between the world’s rich and poor will entrench poverty and increase the risk of climate breakdown, a group of more than 200 leading economists have said.

In a letter to the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and the World Bank president, Ajay Banga, the signatories from 67 countries call on the two bodies to do more to reverse the sharpest increase in global inequality since the second world war.

Those backing the call for action include the former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, New Zealand’s former prime minister Helen Clark and the economists Jayati Ghosh, Joseph Stiglitz and Thomas Piketty. » | Larry Elliott, Economics editor | Monday, July 17, 2023

Super-rich Warned of ‘Pitchforks and Torches’ unless They Tackle Inequality

THE GUARDIAN: Global elite told at London’s Savoy hotel of real risk of ‘civil disruption’ if more is not done to help struggling millions

The conference took place in the ballroom of the Savoy hotel and was attended by about 500 members of the global super-rich and advisers. Photograph: Steve Gorton/Getty/Dorling Kindersley RF
In the ballroom of the five star Savoy hotel on the Strand in central London, the super-rich and their advisers were this week advised that they may soon need to watch out for people with “pitchforks and torches” unless they do more to use their fortunes to help the millions struggling with the cost of living crisis.

At an investment conference organised by Spear’s wealth management magazine, members of the global elite and their financial teams were told by progressive advisers that there was a “real risk of actual insurrection” and “civil disruption” if the yawning inequality gap between rich and poor was allowed to widen as a result of energy and food price hikes hitting squeezed households.

Julia Davies, a founding member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, a group of super-rich people calling for the introduction of a wealth tax, warned that global poverty and the climate emergency were going to get “so much worse” unless the wealthy did more to help poorer citizens. » | Rupert Neate, Wealth correspondent | Friday, June 30, 2023

This Holiday Season, the Poor Buckle Under Inflation as the Rich Spend

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Even if policymakers achieve a gentle economic slowdown, it won’t be smooth for everyone.

November has been busier than expected at the Langham Hotel in Boston as luxury travelers book rooms in plush suites and hold meetings in gilded conference rooms. The $135-per-adult Thanksgiving brunch at its in-house restaurant sold out weeks ago.

Across town, in Dorchester, demand has been booming for a different kind of food service. Catholic Charities is seeing so many families at its free pantry that Beth Chambers, vice president of basic needs at Catholic Charities Boston, has had to close early some days and tell patrons to come back first thing in the morning. On the frigid Saturday morning before Thanksgiving, patrons waiting for free turkeys began to line the street at 4:30 a.m. — more than four hours before the pantry opened.

The contrast illustrates a divide that is rippling through America’s topsy-turvy economy nearly three years into the pandemic. Many well-off consumers are still flush with savings and faring well financially, bolstering luxury brands and keeping some high-end retailers and travel companies optimistic about the holiday season. At the same time, America’s poor are running low on cash buffers, struggling to keep up with rising prices and facing climbing borrowing costs if they use credit cards or loans to make ends meet.

The situation underlines a grim reality of the pandemic era. The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to make borrowing more expensive and temper demand, hoping to cool the economy and bring the fastest inflation in decades back under control. Central bankers are trying to manage that without a recession that leaves families out of work. But the adjustment period is already a painful one for many Americans — evidence that even if the central bank can pull off a so-called “soft landing,” it won’t feel benign to everyone. » | Jeanna Smialek, Photographs by Tony Luong | Reporting from Boston | Friday, November 25, 2022

Rising Asset Wealth and Falling Real Wages ‘Drive Inequality in Britain’

THE GUARDIAN: Young people no longer able to rely on hard work to improve their living standards as they age, says IFS

‘A generation of Britons has ridden a wave of growing asset prices, pushing up the value of their houses and investments,’ says the deputy director of the IFS, Robert Joyce. Photograph: William Barton/Alamy
Working for a living has become a harder way to grow rich in modern Britain amid rising wealth inequality over the past decade, according to research published today that warns of a breakdown in social mobility as inheritances grow in importance.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said wealth had grown rapidly compared with earnings from work since the 2008 financial crisis, driven by a surge in house prices and financial assets – such as stocks and shares – at a time of flatlining progress for average wages.

Robert Joyce, the deputy director of the IFS, said: “A generation of Britons has ridden a wave of growing asset prices, pushing up the value of their houses and investments. Meanwhile, more than a decade of stagnant earnings has held back younger generations for whom earning their own economic success has become increasingly difficult.

“The fact that we can no longer be sure that the young will grow up with living standards that match [those of] their predecessors is a remarkable social change.” » | Richard Partington, Economics correspondent | Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Thomas Piketty: 'Tax the Superrich at 80 Per Cent'! | 2014

Jun 17, 2014 | French economist Thomas Piketty argues for a new taxation system that empowers people who are not born into wealth

‘People Are Tired of Being Ignored While the Rich Get Richer’: Bernie Sanders on Anger and Hope in the US and UK

‘Why, with all this new tech, are we not seeing an improved standard of living?’ … Bernie Sanders at a unionisation rally in Richmond, Virginia. Photograph: Julia Rendleman/Reuters
THE GUARDIAN: The Vermont senator rose from the political margins to become hugely influential within the American left. As he prepares to speak at a London rally, he explains why unions on both sides of the Atlantic must reassert their power

Both are unlikely political sensations who were long consigned to the fringes: Bernie Sanders, an octogenarian US senator who inspired an army of voters far younger than himself; and Mick Lynch, a former blacklisted construction worker and child of Irish immigrants who, as the leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union (RMT), shot to national prominence when he humbled hostile but underinformed broadcast journalists. “I think Lynch is touching a nerve,” Sanders says.

The de facto leader of the US left has swung his considerable political heft behind a new campaign – Enough Is Enough – launched to fight Britain’s mounting cost of living crisis, which was founded in part by Lynch and the RMT. It has certainly touched a nerve: at a recent rally in Clapham, south London, many of those who had queued around the block were turned away for lack of space. “‘Enough is enough’, funnily enough, is an expression we use a lot here,” Sanders says. “People are sick and tired of often working longer hours for low wages; sick and tired of their kids having a lower standard of living than them; and they’re sick and tired of billionaires getting richer and richer while they fall behind.

“Why, with all this new tech out there, are they not seeing an improved standard of living? Why not more equality, rather than less equality? Why are living standards deteriorating, not improving? Lynch is asking that, Enough Is Enough is asking that – and it’s hitting a nerve, because people are tired of being ignored while the rich get richer.” » | Owen Jones | Tuesday, August 30, 2022

More than 40% of Americans think civil war likely within a decade: More than half of ‘strong Republicans’ think such a conflict is at least somewhat likely, poll finds »

Times Have Never Been Better for Billionaires.

Feb 16, 2022 • These are very difficult times for working families. But for billionaires and the CEOs of large corporations, times have never been better. I’m on the Senate floor to explain why.

The Precariat Society I ARTE.tv Documentary

Jan 31, 2022 • A third of Europeans live in economic insecurity: Zero hours contracts, the fear of redundancy and stagnating wages have brought more and more people into poverty and precariousness and provided fertile conditions for the political extremes.

With contributions from geographer Christophe Guilluy, economist Guy Standing, and from people struggling to make ends meet across Europe, this documentary focuses on the new working poor, the precariat.

The Precariat Society I ARTE.tv Documentary
Available until the 17/04/2022

Luxury at the Top, Privation at the Bottom: Britain Is Becoming Feudal in Its Disparities

THE GUARDIAN – OPINION: With their private planes and wine fridges, those governing the UK are too steeped in excess to see the suffering they cause

Sometimes things that are self-evident still need to be pointed out. So it is with one aspect of the crisis we now know as “partygate”, and an element of the story that both observers and participants have seemed to take for granted: the fact that all the disgrace and deceit revealed since December took place amid a level of plenty that millions of people will surely consider almost surreal.

This is not just a matter of a suitcase full of booze, generous helpings of M&S “picnic food” and the infamous fridge that held 34 bottles of wine. Consider the bit-part players: an interior designer whose wallpaper of choice costs £840 a roll, a London property developer (and Tory donor) famed for taking out an £80m mortgage, and a chancellor whose family is reckoned to be worth more than the Queen. Note also the centrality to the Boris Johnson soap opera of cake, from the kind he says he can have while eating it, to the confection he was “ambushed” with in the cabinet room. In this world, any privations demanded by lockdown were more than balanced out by the comforts of eating, drinking and ostentatiously spending, not least on what Johnson apparently terms “letting off steam”.

Lexie often gets through a day by eating only toast, because, she told me last week, “my kids need to eat more than I need to eat”. She is disabled, and lives in rural north Wales, with her husband – who was recently made redundant – and four children, aged from eight to 18. Like so many other people, the benefits system leaves them unable to meet the cost of basic essentials, and their day-to-day predicament is now being made impossible by the mounting cost of living crisis, and everything it means for the price of food, petrol and heating. » | John Harris | Sunday, January 30, 2022

Covid and the Gaping Wealth Gap: What Can Be Done to Fix It? | DW News

Jan 29, 2022 • The coronavirus pandemic has made the rich even richer – and the poor even poorer. Here is why – and what we can do to combat this rise in inequality, which has pushed 160 million people into poverty, while the richest 10 men double their fortunes.

Wealth of World's 10 Richest Men Doubled in Pandemic, Oxfam Says - BBC News

Jan 17, 2022 • The Covid pandemic has made the world's wealthiest far richer but has led to more people living in poverty, according to the charity Oxfam.

Their report said lower incomes for the world's poorest contributed to the death of 21,000 people each day.

But the world's 10 richest men have more than doubled their collective fortunes since March 2020.

Oxfam's report is based on data from the Forbes Billionaires List and the annual Credit Suisse Global Wealth report, which gives the distribution of global wealth going back to 2000.


Related.

The Billionaire Variant: World’s Richest Doubled Their Wealth While Millions Fell into Poverty – Oxfam

Jan 19, 2022 • We speak to Max Lawson of Oxfam about the ‘Inequality Kills’ report, which details how while 99% of humanity’s income fell, 160 million were pushed into poverty and 1 person died every 4 seconds over the course of the Coronavirus pandemic…the top 10 richest men saw their wealth more than double from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion dollars, a rate of $1.2 billion a day.

Related.

The Guardian View on Covid's Widening Gaps: The Rich Are Getting Richer

THE GUARDIAN: Rishi Sunak ought to make it clear that it is the real economy that needs rescuing, not the City

For speculators, the cryptocurrency party was just starting. At the beginning of last year one bitcoin was worth £5,614 before almost reaching £30,000 at the end of last week. On Monday, Britain’s financial watchdog took the punch bowl away, by warning bitcoin investors that they could lose all their money. While it may sober up a few of the partygoers many will find solace in their bank balances. Anyone who bought cryptoassets at the beginning of the year was sitting potentially on a 400% gain, an extraordinary return in a year when a health crisis has morphed into an economic one.

Thanks to the government’s actions, owners of assets have had a very good pandemic. Shares in London are back to where they were in late February last year. House prices in 2020 rose by 6%, helped by the chancellor’s temporary stamp duty holiday. Economic euphoria needs a drug. It turns out that the dealer with the best supply of credit is the government. Its central bank has flooded the financial system with cash meant to be loaned to chase a positive rate of return. In Britain’s distorted economy investors, even in the midst of Covid, prefer to make outlandish short-term capital gains rather than income from productive investment. » | Editorial | Monday, January 11, 2021

How the Richest Get Richer in the Pandemic While Americans Struggle | The Mehdi Hasan Show

Anand Giridharadas joins Mehdi Hasan to detail how America's richest few have grown their wealth amid the pandemic, often at the expense of the poor and middle class.

Velshi: The Gap between America’s Richest and Poorest Has Only Grown During the Pandemic | MSNBC

MSNBC’s Ali Velshi explains how recessions enrich the wealthiest while driving working class Americans into poverty.