( Inequality.org) – One person, one vote. The classic essence of democracy. But what if that one person happens to be a fabulously rich? Does that one person actually have just “one” vote? Can we have anything approaching democracy when some among us are sitting on fortunes grander than the rest of us can even […]
The Supreme Court didn’t Protect Color-Blindness but our Opportunity to Labor under a Hereditary Plutocracy
By Sam Pizzigati | – ( Inequality.org ) – In our United States today, all of us do not have an “equal opportunity” to become rich — or even comfortable. Rich people like things that way. Grand fortunes only grow grander when the richest among us have plenty of exploitable people around to exploit. To […]
How Contractor CEOs get Rich off Taxpayers
By Sam Pizzigati | ( Otherwords.org ) – Does anyone have a sweeter deal than military contractor CEOs? The United States spent more last year on defense than the next 10 nations combined. A deal just brokered by the White House and House Republicans increases that amount even further — to $886 billion. Defense contractors […]
The Return of GOP-backed Child Labor is another Good Reason to Tax the Rich
By Sam Pizzigati | ( Otherwords) – Ever since the middle of the 20th century, our history textbooks have applauded the reform movement that put an end to the child-labor horrors that ran widespread throughout the early Industrial Age. Now those horrors are reappearing. The number of kids employed in direct violation of existing child […]
Southwest’s Meltdown: Stock Buybacks, High Exec Pay, and Neglected Software Upgrades
() Inequality.org) – For America’s rich and powerful, the new year is beginning in a most inauspicious fashion. Millions of Americans are once again fuming at the greed and grasping of our deepest pockets. That fuming — from would-be passengers of Southwest Airlines and their families — filled airports throughout this past holiday week. For […]
Inequality Kills. But We Can Stop the Killing
( Inequality.org ) – Over a half-century ago, back in the mid-1960s, books about poverty abounded. But publishers paid relatively little attention to wealth’s concentration. A generation earlier, Americans had obsessed about grand private fortunes. By late mid-century, that obsession no longer excited either the media or the public. That would all soon change, particularly […]
Climate Emergency Caused our Scorching Summer, but Inequality meant it hit Workers Hardest
( Inequality.org ) – The heat. Never been hotter in our lifetimes. This past spring the mercury nearly hit 124 in the Pakistani city of Jacobabad, “just below,” notes science writer David Wallace-Wells, “the conventional estimate for the threshold of human survival.” This summer’s U.S. daily high temperatures are continuing our torrid global pace. America’s […]
Does the Future Belong to People Who Profit Off Our ‘Excessive Wealth Disorder’?
( Inequality.org ) – If Dustin Hoffman should ever do a remake of The Graduate, the classic 1967 film that launched his famed cinematic career, what might be the 2020s update for that film’s most iconic exchange? A good many of us still fondly remember that poolside party scene. A 21-year-old “Benjamin” gets pulled aside […]
Why Keeping Workers Poor Is actually Bad for Business
( Otherwords.org) – CEOs at America’s biggest low-wage employers now take home, on average, 670 times what their typical workers make. But we don’t just get unfairness when a boss can grab more in a year than a worker could make in over six centuries. We get bungling and inefficient businesses. Management science has been […]