UPDATE: Nasa study = Industrial civilization headed for ‘irreversible collapse’ in a perfect storm that will unravel the global system in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.
Nasa study of Historical records = “the process of rise-and-collapse (of Advanced, complex civilizations) is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.” Cases of severe civilizational disruption due to “precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common.” = ROME + PHARAOHS + equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, + Mesopotamian Empires = Facts that “advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent.”
Most salient Factors = Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, Energy = “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity” + INEQUALITY “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]” = Social phenomena have played “a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse (over) the last five thousand years.”
NASA Study = “[e]lite wealth monopolies …are buffered from the most ‘detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners,’ allowing them to ‘continue “business as usual” despite the impending catastrophe… While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory ‘so far’ in support of doing nothing.”
This Delay of CHANGE leads to the impending Collapse.
Click for Guardian Article on NASA STUDY
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WOMEN POWER = WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED!
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FACTS ON INEQUALITY:
UPDATE: Finland Fixed Inequality with TAX SYSTEM!
#1 Finland MOST INEQUALITY of Pre-tax household incomes = Like UK and USA
#1 Finland MOST EQUALITY of After-tax household incomes = NOT like UK-USA
Finland proves it is possible to change income distribution dramatically using TAX SYSTEM!
Finland is the country among the highest life quality in the world = According to the “prosperity index” published by the Legatum Institute
USA = Past 20 years, O.33%/Year growth in incomes for poorest 99% in USA = widespread stagnation of living standards.
Japan tax system redistributes almost nothing but the country’s economy delivers more EQUAL outcomes.
Underlying causes of Inequality:
Fortunes do not accumulate through skill and luck alone = Laws and regulations can be changed. = Break up Monopolies + Change Patten rules + Change Copyright laws + Change Tax Rates + Maximum Incomes = Reform redistribution to reduce Inequality
Finland is a rich and successful nation but changed its income distribution dramatically through the tax system. = IMF celebrated research paper adds careful empirical backing to this intuitive idea.
- How should be redistributed
- How to we redistribute
- Tax codes are riddled with loopholes and special cases and are getting Worse
- Focus on Sensible tax design and less attention to crowd-pleasers.
- Inequality = Good teachers in most classrooms + Safety in poorer areas + Affordable public transport + Toddlers receive stimulating childcare + Pension system encourages savers without making millionaires out of slick middlemen
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Reduce Poverty and Save Taxpayers $Billions/Year By Sally Steenland | March 19, 2014
$4.6 Billion/Year = Saved for Middle Class Taxpayers by Raising federal minimum wage to $10.10/Hour = Reduced need for federal assistance = SNAP
$4.6 Billion/Year = Report by the Center for American Progress and the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment on Min Wage and SNAP = “The Effects of Minimum Wages on SNAP Enrollments and Expenditures”
FACT: Every $1 increase in family earnings brings a 30 cent drop in SNAP benefits.
FACT: Best way to CUT BUDGET DEFICIT and spending is by raising the minimum wage. = “It’s a win-win all around. Workers win, taxpayers win, and small businesses and the economy win when workers have more money to spend.”
— Melissa Boteach, Vice President of the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress
FACT: $4.6 Billion/Year savings comes from businesses paying for their own Employees instead of Middle Class Taxpayers picking up the TAB = Subsidizing MULTINATIONAL Corporations = Wal-Mart, Target, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut—whose incomes are soaring while .
SNAP = Effective Program that feeds families, improves the health of low-income children, and is a smart investment in our nation’s well-being and future.
Current FED MIN WAGE $7.25 = $15,080/Year full-time = $4,000 below poverty line
Gallup Poll = 75+% of Americans want higher minimum wage
GOP 58%
Independents 76%
Democrats 91%
FACT: Americans believe full-workers should make enough to support their families
GOP Congress = Out of step with the public = Discharge petition can force a vote on raising MIN WAGE will show where Our representatives stand.
ISSUE: Welfare to $BILLIONAIRES versus MIN WAGE
Pope Francis = Speaks of the dignity of work = “We get dignity from work….safety of the worker always be protected.”
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GOP AND FORBES SOLUTION FOR INEQUALITY = WAKE THOSE LAZY Fs UP and HAVE THEM EXPLOIT OTHER PEOPLE LIKE THE RICH DO TO GET RICH THEMSELVES and shut the F UP on OTHER SOLUTIONS.
Click for Forbes Article = PURE LIES!
INEQUALITY SOLUTION: A recent vote in Switzerland restricts corporate pay
GOP says = DON’T YOU DARE THINK = Wealth is the culprit.
GOP = Poverty and social dysfunction are what plague us = Cannot be fixed by taking from the haves to give to the have-nots. The WORTHLESS have-nots must become the “do-somethings.” = MORE FREEDOM TO EXPLOIT IS WHAT IS NEEDED. = Thrilled about wealth in the hands of FEW 425 BILLIONAIRES = Exciting and inspiring FEW says article in Forbes. It is just JEALOUSY. The poor have refrigerators and a TV so capitalism is working. GOP = Any form of Socialism like Scandinavia has – is economic insanity = Simply the Highest standard of living in the world. GOP = We can NEVER tolerate the folly of redistribution through taxation and transfer payments.
GOP FALSELY defines Socialism as Communism and state runs all production and resources and the state sets prices arbitrarily and requires rationing and NO DEMOCRACY like a dictatorship and loss of all liberties = North Korea LOL! GOP is so absurd! To GOP the two choices are THE ABOVE FAKERY of FREE MARKET GLOBALIZED C”R”APITALISM AND EXPLOITATION of SLAVE LABOR.
GOP = says life in Scandinavia is miserable, sick, and poor we’d be without the creative power of a free market. = People have no incentive to carry life on into the next generation. People need incentives to believe that their children will thrive and prosper. GOP says so socialism in Scandinavia with the HIGHEST QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE WORLD is to be dreaded = Only CUT-THROAT c”r”apitalism works.
GOP = Focus on the real issue that ignites anger, fear, and sadness = THOSE LAZY POOR PEOPLE living in poverty. The RICH NEED to keep on their misguided pillaging of the 99%. WAKE THOSE LAZY Fs UP and be like US ACHIEVE WEALTH by inheritance and EXPLOITATION OF OTHER PEOPLE and OUR NATURAL RESOURCES. Unleash this CREATIVITY FOR ALL OF THE 99% and we can END THE WORLD TOGETHER!
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Top 10% = Possess 80+% of all financial assets (2007)
Top 1% = Posses 37.1% of all total wealth
Bottom 80% of the population owned 7% of total wealth (2011).
GOP BUSH Great Recession = LOSS of 36.1% in median household wealth
Top 400 Americans = 50+% of ALL WEALTH (2011)
USA # 1 in 2013 in wealth inequality = Worst of ALL developed countries = Hidden Offshore holdings in Europe.
Inequality is unfair But a stronger argument is TURN STRUCTURAL REFORM ON ITS HEAD = EASY SOLUTION: GUARANTEE EVERY AMERICAN A BASIC LIVING INCOME AT OR ABOVE THE POVERTY LINE!
RICH ARGUE with breathless outrage = NO ONE CAN LOOT ENOUGH MONEY! + You are just JEALOUS of me.
BLIND INJUSTICE
STRUCTURAL REFORM = Classical IMF-Washington NEOLIBERAL SPEEK = Austerity + SLAVE LABOR MARKETS + Privatization + FREE TRADE + DEREGULATION + TRICKLE DOWN + JOB CREMATORS. = SMASH LABOR AND PEOPLE! = TOP DOWN CLASS WAREFARE LIKE THE PAST 30+ YEARS! = FASTER EXPLOITING OF THE WORKING CLASS AND FASTER SCAMMING OF THE MIDDLE CLASS! = 425 MULTINATIONAL BILLIONAIRES GET RICHER FASTER!
REDUCE INEQUALITY = TURN STRUCTURAL REFORM ON ITS HEAD = MORE GROWTH with CONSUMER SPENDING! = The bulk of economic activity
Since REAGAN the very rich have been capturing most of the gains of economic growth, and they save proportionally more of their money. = Aggregate demand FALLS LIKE A ROCK.
SINCE REAGAN consumer spending was propped up by household borrowing SCAMS = EVER CHANGING INTEREST RATES UNTIL Household Debt Reached a CEILING as CENTRAL BANKS tightened CREDIT and THE CRASH ROBBED HOME OWNERS OF THEIR “ON PAPER WEALTH!” Median wages have been 0% for 30 YEARS SO IT WAS ALL A BUNCH OF FAKED WEALTH AND DEBT SCAMS! = IMPOSSIBLE to recover from a devastating recession.
Selling Luxury Cars, Yachts or Watches has only limited potential and with so few of them (425 Billionaires) they soon satiate themselves so they SAVE or USE THEIR LOOT FOR BIGGER SCAMS!
Capitalism has become a machine for the extremely wealthy with 14,OOO TAX DODGING LOOPHOLES and laws that legalize their MONOPOLY ROBBERY SCAMS of the MIDDLE CLASS resulting in making even MORE POOR AMERICANS ON FOOD STAMPS or WORSE = VICTIMIZATION of the 99.999%!
After World War II = Economy was geared to mass market production and growth was strong because there was an enormous HUMAN market to sell to that had some excess income to spend ABOVE BASIC SURVIVAL.
As the bulk of the Americans have had 30+ YEARS OF STAGNANT INCOME they are now increasingly alienated from any rewards of growth = AMERICAN DREAM IS IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR! = Chronic unemployment + Chronic Poverty + HIGH PRODUCTIVITY + HUGH SURPLUSES from mass production = But the AMERICAN people are in SURVIVAL MODE often without enough to GET BY! = NO SURPLUS INCOMES to BUY THE HUGH OUTPUTS/SURPLUSES! = Our mass production structure is rotting. = Even Larry Summers NOW says = “Lack of demand creates its own lack of supply.”
SIMPLE FACTS:
- We have EXHAUSTED our ABILITY to CONSUME with 0% Wage Growth for 30+ Years and EXHAUSTION OF OUR DEBT CAPACITY built on FAKED HOUSING WEALTH! = WE HAV NO EXCESS MONEY BEYOND MEETING SURVIVAL NEEDS!
- WALL STREET and MULTINATIONALS shipped OUR JOBS to $1 / Hour or even $1 / Day countries leaving a LABOR MARKET with ZERO LEVERAGE and few UNIONS to negotiate better wages. = High structural UNEMPLOYMENT.
EASY SOLUTION: GUARANTEE EVERY AMERICAN A BASIC LIVING INCOME AT OR ABOVE THE POVERTY LINE! ALL EARNED INCOME IS THEN SURPLUS INCOME THAT CAN EAT UP THE SURPLUS MASS PRODUCTION AND GROW THE ECONOMY!
SUMMARY = CURING INEQUALITY WITH BASIC LIVING INCOMES FOR ALL CURES LACK OF CONSUMPTION AND CREATES REAL POSITIVE GROWTH.
Very Serious People need to start aggressively arguing for BASIC INCOME GUARANTEES.
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INEQUALITY = Greater Uncertainty + High Social Tensions + Political Instability
INEQUALITY = Potential for Violence and Conflicts + Demolishes human rights for 99%
INEQUALITY = Jeopardizes economic growth
INEQUALITY = Caused by Globalization UNDP Study says, “Specific aspects of globalization,…(un)regulated financial and trade liberalization processes…distributed very unequally …upward trend observed over the last decades.”
85 richest people in world since 1970s accumulated 50% of ALL wealth = Oxfam report
85 richest people in world = Own more than the poorest 3. 5 Billion people = Oxfam
Problem NOT addressed = Politics of CONTROL BY RICHEST 85
NEO-LIBERALISM OF REAGAN-THATCHER = GLOBAL EXPLOITATION OF LOW WAGE WORKERS to MAXIMIZE WEALTH AT TOP
LOSS OF UPWARD MOBILITY
30 YEARS OF WAGE STAGNATION FOR MOST AMERICANS
GROWING INCOME AND WEALTH INEQUALITY
CAUSE AMERICAN DREAM TO DISAPPEAR FOR MOST AMERICANS
MARKETED DEBT FUELED THE HOUSING BOOM
MIDDLE CLASS IS DYING
POOR ARE GROWING
USA #1 in WEALTH INEQUALITY IN DEVELOPED WORLD
USA #1 in INCOME INEQUALITY IN DEVELOPED WORLD
NO INVESTMENT IN AMERICA OR AMERICANS
FED RESERVE PROVIDES ENDLESS SUPPLY OF NEAR 0% LOOT FOR SPECULATION = NO RISK GAMBLING with MIDDLE CLASS PAYING FOR BAILOUTS
REDUCES HEALTHY LIFE EXPECTANCY BY 8 to 12 YEARS
INCREASE PRISON POPULATION
INCREASES VIOLENT CRIMES
REDUCES COMMUNITY COHESION AND TRUST
INCREASE IN MENTAL HEALTH COSTS AND LOST PRODUCTIVITY
REDUCED QUALITY OF LIFE FOR MOST
STUDY York University’s Institute for Social Research = Vast majority of Canadians believe that income inequality has worsened over the last 30 years.
NEO-LIBERALISM OF REAGAN-THATCHER = 1980 to PRESENT
University of British Columbia Study found since 1980 = Top 10% had all increase in net worth and income
NEO-LIBERALISM OF REAGAN-THATCHER = WEALTH DISTRIBUTION TO TOP
NEO-LIBERALISM OF REAGAN-THATCHER = Bottom 90% unrewarded for WORK
Richest 20% get 83% of global income UNDP Report called “Humanity Divided”
Poorest 20% get 1% of global income
75% of the world lives in GREATER INEQUALITY now than in 1990
Global GDP ballooned from $22 trillion (1990) to $72 trillion (now)
Globalization = Weakened bargaining position of relatively immobile labor = sub $1/hr
Globalization = Labor income as % of manufacturing output fell Dramatically
Globalization = Capital Flows made countries more vulnerable to economic and financial shocks, causing lower growth and employment, hurting the poor. UNDP Study
Globalization = Drives up inequality
WORLD BANK CURES FOR Globalization = Stop tax evasion + More progressive income tax Policies + Incentives for investment + Cash transfers + Credits for small businesses + Expansion of public investment + Expansion of safety nets = REPAIR TENDENCY FOR WEALTH GOING TO THE TOP 1%
CURES FOR Globalization = Redistributing Wealth and Income such as land or assets + Nationalizations have reduced extreme inequality successfully.
CURES FOR Globalization = Modify Process of Globalization + Regulation of speculative financial markets
CURES FOR Globalization = “Deglobalization” = Walden Bello – Focus on the Global South in response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997.
World Bank = Clearly states measures to reduce inequality MUST not affect “free trade.”
International financial institutions = Ignore structural causes of inequality = World Bank
International financial institutions = Fight measures to combat inequality = FAKE new name: “inclusive growth” = SAME OLD TRICKLE DOWN-GLOBALIZATION-JOB CREATE LIES
De-globalization = Process of restructuring world economic and political system to build the capacity of local and national economies instead of exploiting them for GAINS.
De-globalization = Transformation of a global economy from “one integrated around transnational corporations to one integrated around the needs of peoples, nations and communities.” = ENDS “one size fits all” neoliberalism or bureaucratic socialism. = Diversity and competition are expected and encouraged = Like nature.
De-globalization = Reorient national economies away from export production and toward production for the local market to fulfill basic human needs, relying primarily on domestic resources and employing technologies that enhance rather than destroy the community, the environment and life itself.
De-globalization = Redistribute the sources of income and wealth such as land, ensuring domestic control over key sectors of the economy and promoting community access to basic services like water, health care and education.
De-globalization = Provide more resources to rural areas to halt the migrations that increase inequality and rob local communities through resource grabbing.
De-globalization = Expand public services in rural areas and implement tools to boost food sovereignty for all communities.
De-globalization = De-emphasise economic growth based on the recognition that this growth has limits.
De-globalization = Maximize equity of OPPORTUNITY without breaking the vital cycles of nature (Diversity and competition) and overshooting carrying capacity of the Earth.
De-globalization = Make strategic economic decisions subject to participatory democracy rather than “Free Market”
De-globalization = Debate can build a viable alternatives to the flawed system we have today = Explosive inequality caused by exploitation be 85 PEOPLE!
Britain’s oligarchs = INEQUALITY!
NEO-LIBERALISM OF REAGAN-THATCHER = Rising inequality of capitalism trying to squeeze more out of the workforce = HIGHER PRODUCTION WITH LOWER CONSUMPTION. Henry Ford paid workers more so they could buy his cars.
FACT: Growing levels of economic disparities leads to higher macroeconomic instability
Grotesque levels of inequality of wealth and income = The rottenness of a neo-Liberal model that concentrates wealth in the hands of a very few while the billions globally are poor in every sense of the word. = A sore in the side of humanity that gets worse, according to Thomas Piketty, one the world’s experts on global inequality = Rising wealth-to-income ratios, inequality, and growth by Thomas Piketty, Gabriel Zucman, 26 September 2013
FACT: Inequality has been increasing in the developed world and is now approaching prewar levels and even pre-depression levels.
Wealth Inequality = The increase in the ratio of private wealth to national income.
Reducing inequality = A defining challenges of our time.
Reducing inequality = Discussion has centered on the need to invest in education = Reduces dispersion of wages in the long run, but it is not enough. = INCOME IS NOT ENOUGH = WEALTH IS KEY!
Income inequality = Driven by the top 1% of income earners = NOT the NEXT 9% = both groups have the same diplomas (education)
Economists used to believe the ratio of aggregate wealth to income is constant over time, but it is not.
FACT: Wealth-to-income ratios of rich countries are increasing since 1970s
For Top 8 Developed Nations:
- 1970 = Aggregate private wealth was 2 to 3 Times national income
- 2014 = Aggregate private wealth was 4 to 7 Times national income
WEALTH GROWTH = Rar-reaching implications for inequality = Whole new set of policies
Private wealth / national income ratios, 1970-2010:
FACT: Wealth is very concentrated
FACT: High wealth-to-income ratios = Inequality of (wealth + inherited wealth)
Inherited wealth = Greater and Greater Concern = Need for progressive capital and inheritance taxation + International coordination to prevent wealth from hiding in offshore tax havens. = OR a wave of anti-globalization and anti-capital policies will be seen.
Postwar decades marked by relatively low wealth = Anomaly
High wealth-to-income ratios = Norm in Europe from 18th to 19th centuries
World wars = Low saving rates, and a number of anti-capital policies provoked a large drop in private wealth, from six to seven times national income to about two times in the aftermath of World War II.
High wealth-to-income ratios = Now have returned to their 19th-century levels = the wealth-to-income ratio has also followed a U-shape evolution as we see a return to almost monarchical wealth levels.
Private wealth / national income ratios, 1870-2010: Europe vs. USA
Capital share = Lower than 19th century UK and France = Maybe human capital today is more important than it was two centuries ago.
Forbes’s very top wealth holders have risen at 6% to 7% per year 1987 to 2013 = 3 times faster than per capita wealth and income at the world level.
PROJECTION = Lower Population Growth = High wealth-to-income ratios + Automation of Labor = A return to high capital shares of 19th century = Probable = Could reach 42+%. = MASSIVE WEALTH AND INCOME INEQUALITY
Bubbles are potentially more devastating when the total stock of wealth amounts to six to eight times national income rather than two to three times = Monitor and Regulate wealth-to-income ratios is important for designing appropriate financial and monetary policies.
- 147 MULTINATIONALS control 40% of the all wealth in the network
- 737 MULTINATIONALS control 80% of all the wealth in the network
THIS Inequality HURTS the functioning of capitalism – concentrated power of capital.
Britain’s and USA’s oligarchs are BIG part of this nexus.
SOLVING INEQUALITY George Orwell Style
George Orwell understood populist rage against income inequality in his own time
Orwell = Critiques of totalitarian tyrants + Assailed the “capitalist racket.”
Orwell = Sympathies lay with the working classes who suffered under both dictators and bosses.
Orwell = Policemen = “bodyguards to the propertied classes” whose economic system rested upon the “grab-motive.”
Orwell = Obscure the crimes of capitalism said, “The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism… is the idea of equality…” = “an era of equality and freedom.”
Orwell = Revolutionary feelings are undeniably important = “full of revolutionary ardor.” = “Revolutionary discipline depends on political consciousness-on an understanding of why orders must be obeyed.” = Class loyalty + “war to restore feudalism.” = Would not accept a war to restore “bourgeois democracy.” = Fight against authoritarianism, property, and inequality. = “the war and the revolution are inseparable.”
Orwell = High food prices and shortages of necessities hit the working-class hard as “queues for bread” were “hundreds of yards long.” While, “the restaurants and hotels seemed to have little difficulty in getting whatever they wanted” for their rich patrons. = Inequality was masked and not abolished. = “social atmosphere” arose from a bitter competition between “those who wished the revolution to go forward and those who wished to check or prevent it.” Main issue was control of the government and this directed the war = Who consolidates government power that prioritized winning the war and saving democracy. = This was deceptive. Often Dictatorship is replaced by Dictatorship of a different strip. = Censorship of opponents + indiscriminately jailing or executioning.
Orwell = Feigned prosperity by day and sleeping in the streets at night. = Appearance of respectability was his salvation. = Looking “as bourgeois as possible,” he avoided suspicion and crossed into France by train “without incident.”
Orwell = Disappointed in revolution for a better socialist government = “tied to the big feudal land lords and stood for a stuffy clerico-military reaction…only millionaires and romantics could want him to win.” = The sustained existence of a classless society has proved a bloody and impossible endeavor for socialist societies. Socialism does not eliminate classes, but simplifies them into the poor majority and a rich well-connected elite. = Loyalty to clan can only trump class to a limited extent.
SOLUTION: Many subscribe to socialism lite = SCANDINAVIAN SUCCESSES AND HIGHEST QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE WORLD.
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