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nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #650 on: June 24, 2020, 07:25:51 AM »
^^Why do you want to know Tom?



edit:
More articles about the Guardian investigation into unaffordable water at:

   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/americas-water-crisis

Also an article by Bernie Sanders (and Brenda Lawrence).
« Last Edit: June 24, 2020, 08:01:39 AM by nanning »
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #651 on: June 24, 2020, 12:11:07 PM »
^^Why do you want to know Tom?



edit:
More articles about the Guardian investigation into unaffordable water at:

   https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/americas-water-crisis

Also an article by Bernie Sanders (and Brenda Lawrence).
I live in Ohio. Am I close to this city? My water bills are pretty high.

The Walrus

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #652 on: June 24, 2020, 03:57:28 PM »
Quote
One city i am familiar with in ohio, refused to do anything until the federal EPA sued both the city _and the state EPA_  to enforce clean water law.
What city is that, sidd?

Can you please answer sidd?  I tried to look this up, but was unable to find anything.

vox_mundi

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“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

The Walrus

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #654 on: June 24, 2020, 06:48:01 PM »
Those links are to environmental groups suing the EPA.  They are not about a single municipality  but several, all of which are related to algae bloom in Lake Erie.  I found nothing about the cost of water and sewer tripling, nor a price tag of $18 billion.  Perhaps sidd can better help here.

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #655 on: June 24, 2020, 07:55:00 PM »
Perhaps that's because you didn't read the information that was given to you ...

Quote
... (Washington, DC - December 22, 2010) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Justice Department announced today a comprehensive Clean Water Act settlement with the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District that will address the flow of untreated sewage into Cleveland area waterways and Lake Erie. The settlement will safeguard water quality and protect human health by capturing and treating more than 98 percent of wet weather flows entering the combined sewer system, which services the city of Cleveland and 59 adjoining communities.

Or, perhaps your just sealioning
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #656 on: June 24, 2020, 08:08:22 PM »
Cleveland area?
Yep, that's my part of the state  :'(

The Walrus

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #657 on: June 24, 2020, 08:59:30 PM »
Perhaps that's because you didn't read the information that was given to you ...

Quote
... (Washington, DC - December 22, 2010) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Justice Department announced today a comprehensive Clean Water Act settlement with the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District that will address the flow of untreated sewage into Cleveland area waterways and Lake Erie. The settlement will safeguard water quality and protect human health by capturing and treating more than 98 percent of wet weather flows entering the combined sewer system, which services the city of Cleveland and 59 adjoining communities.

Or, perhaps your just sealioning

That's not it.  Still waiting.

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #658 on: June 26, 2020, 04:17:18 PM »
Personal experience.

I know how it is to feel anxiety like many poor people in rich countries have. Every time an official council letter arrives in the post, I am afraid it might put me into involuntary work without an interview, without a contract and far below the minimum salary. I think it would be slavery.
I'm on benefits with an extremely low chance of work in this culture. And I am glad I'm not living in the Anglosphere.

Do you know this anxiety? Of losing control over your life?
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #659 on: June 26, 2020, 06:40:36 PM »
nanning, I've always had minimal control over my life anyway.

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #660 on: July 01, 2020, 07:03:45 AM »
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/30/tesla-shareholders-urged-to-oust-elon-musk-over-55bn-pay-deal

I don't know what the best fitting thread is for this.


Tesla inc.

Bonus of CEO employee: $ 55,000,000,000   (conditional)
Please note that this specific employee is already a billionaire, not a 'worker', and keeps making problems.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.
Number of employees: 48,016

One employee's bonus divided over all employees:
$ 1,145,451 per employee
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #661 on: July 02, 2020, 09:14:37 PM »
States With Highest Income Inequality Experienced a Larger Number of COVID-19 Deaths
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-states-highest-income-inequality-experienced.html

States with the highest level of income inequality had a larger number of COVID-19-related deaths compared with states with lower income inequality. New York state, with the highest income inequality, had a mortality rate of 51.7 deaths per 100,000. This is 125 times greater than Utah, the state with the lowest income inequality and which had a mortality of 0.41 per 100,000 at the end of the period studied.

Looking at the top three in each category, New York was followed by Louisiana with 19 deaths per 100,000, and Connecticut with 16.9 deaths per 100,000. States in addition to Utah with the lowest COVID deaths that were linked to income inequality were South Dakota, with 0.7 deaths per 100,000 and North Dakota, which had one death per 100,000.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, data from New York City and Chicago shows that African Americans and Hispanics have experienced higher rates of infection and death. These groups are largely low income, have less access to health care, hold essential jobs limiting their ability to maintain social distancing, and frequently live in extended family households where the infection risk is higher.

Carlos Irwin A. Oronce et al. Association Between State-Level Income Inequality and COVID-19 Cases and Mortality in the USA, Journal of General Internal Medicine (2020).
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-05971-3

------------------------------------
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

The Walrus

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #662 on: July 02, 2020, 09:22:17 PM »
Not sure about the significance of this information, but Democratic states had higher income inequality and COVID cases than Republican states.  But that does not mean they is a direct correlation.

igs

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #663 on: July 02, 2020, 11:07:22 PM »
Not sure about the significance of this information, but Democratic states had higher income inequality and COVID cases than Republican states.  But that does not mean they is a direct correlation.


If there is a correlation it's the other way around, states with higher income inequality have more discontent citizens who vote democrats. People who see or feel injustice tend to vote more left and people who are content tend to vote the middle. Since there is no "middle" in the U.S. that is worth to mention I assume they vote "NON-Left" = Republican.


Of course as usual things are not that simple which is why I say "IF there is a correlation" then.....

interstitial

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #664 on: July 03, 2020, 03:38:15 AM »
Democrats do better in heavily populated areas and Republicans do better in rural areas. That explains 100% of those trends.

The Walrus

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #665 on: July 03, 2020, 04:24:37 AM »
Democrats do better in heavily populated areas and Republicans do better in rural areas. That explains 100% of those trends.

Exactly!  But trying to tie COVID cases to either just because they correlate is ludicrous.

blumenkraft

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #666 on: July 03, 2020, 11:16:22 AM »

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #667 on: July 08, 2020, 12:34:25 AM »
COVID-19 Demonstrates Why Wealth Matters
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-covid-wealth.html

Data suggest that the pandemic may exacerbate underlying inequalities.

..."Social distancing is a privilege that comes with resources and wealth, but wealth is not distributed equally in America," said Michal Grinstein-Weiss, the Shanti K. Khinduka Distinguished Professor and director of the SPI. "Wealth gives individuals agency to make choices, like social distancing, that keep themselves and their families healthy."

Black households had a harder time being able to socially distance compared with white peers. Black respondents reported needing to work to make money.

"Lower liquid assets leave people in a position of choosing income over social distance safety," Grinstein-Weiss said. "As money increases, affordability to social distance increases."

... The data was presented during a virtual event titled "The Impact of COVID-19 on the Racial, Gender, and Generational Wealth Gaps," co-hosted with the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

https://socialpolicyinstitute.wustl.edu/impact-of-COVID-19-on-family-wealth/
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #668 on: July 09, 2020, 05:25:45 AM »
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

blumenkraft

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #669 on: July 13, 2020, 12:57:07 PM »
Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need

Link >> https://scoop.me/housing-first-finland-homelessness/

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #670 on: July 14, 2020, 03:31:20 PM »
blumenkraft, here is how the good ole USA is handling homelessness:

Looming evictions may soon make 28 million homeless in U.S., expert says
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/10/looming-evictions-may-soon-make-28-million-homeless-expert-says.html

I especially like this little titbit:
Quote
CNBC: Because of the pandemic, a lot of these evictions are unfolding over video or phone instead of in a courtroom. What are the issues that come up here?

EB: Even prior to the pandemic, the system was very challenging for tenants to navigate and to raise their rights — 90% of tenants across the country are unrepresented. When you consider that people are now choosing between rent and food for their families, they’re also unlikely to be able to pay for minutes on their phone, or Wi-Fi, to log into a remote hearing. So appearance itself may be very challenging. And if they fail to appear, if they weren’t able to dial in or if they don’t have the right link to the Zoom, that’s considered a failure to appear, which results in a default judgment for the property owner.

blumenkraft

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #671 on: July 14, 2020, 03:41:29 PM »
I know, Tom. It breaks my heart.  :'(

kassy

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #672 on: July 14, 2020, 04:30:30 PM »
28 million homeless people is a lot of desperate people.
That´s 7%.

Can´t end well.
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Pmt111500

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #673 on: July 14, 2020, 05:09:40 PM »
Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need

Link >> https://scoop.me/housing-first-finland-homelessness/

This is sort of socialist propaganda, there are at least some immigrants (illegal and legal) and a few finnish homeless people around even in my city. Some do not know where to ask about housing, some have ran away from their families, still some do not want to be housed in the areas there are available single rooms. An estimate could be a bit under 100 people.

Overall though, the situation is pretty good, and not too many try to overnight in the corridors of locked apartment blocks during winters.

kassy

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #674 on: July 14, 2020, 05:33:43 PM »
It´s about the system and what it wants to do. Actually housing the homeless is cheaper then pölicing them.

Of course this does not mean you can help everyone at once and there will always be outliers.

I actually ended up homeless and it took a while to get back. Along the way i met many people which were all different. Some were not actually interested in getting a house at all. It might be being used to a different life for too long.

Although i could never understand that. First time they gave me a key and i could lock a door again and outside was suddenly outside again i just cried.

Some people have different safe spaces but if you safe all the easy cases you have more resources (people figuring out what to do with them) for the special ones.
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blumenkraft

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #675 on: July 14, 2020, 05:46:01 PM »
Thanks a lot for sharing, Kassy. <3

blumenkraft

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #676 on: July 15, 2020, 01:17:12 PM »

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #677 on: July 15, 2020, 04:12:59 PM »
A bit late.. Thank you kassy for that beautiful post. I completely agree and very much value a bit of life story. Gained many experiences, you know more about yourself and how to scan others, you managed and you perhaps learned a lot. Good that you have a home and a house again. Your own kitchen! :)
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

blumenkraft

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #678 on: July 17, 2020, 11:04:29 AM »
How weird is this economy? It's so freaking weird, that a CNBC anchor is genuinely shocked by a guest saying “who cares” about billionaires losing money!


GoSouthYoungins

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #679 on: July 17, 2020, 06:54:32 PM »
The anchor is clearly a white supremacist who doesn't value the brown man's opinion.

I really don't understand how in 2020 anyone can look at ANYTHING and not think it is racist.

I follow a youtuber who does chess videos. Youtube finally banned his video. I mean the guy had been saying things like, "this is a good move because white will annihilate black in this position." Send this white chess player to the gulag already! There is no place for him in an anti-racist world.
big time oops

kassy

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #680 on: July 17, 2020, 06:58:33 PM »
Or post to ´The Problem with social media´.

I hate how the annual dentist congress pollutes my geology feed. *erosion*
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blumenkraft

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #681 on: July 31, 2020, 08:52:13 PM »

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #682 on: August 04, 2020, 06:34:14 AM »
The richest families thet bloomberg knows about:

"The Waltons are richer than ever, adding $25 billion in the past year to take their combined fortune to an estimated $215 billion. "

"The family’s unprecedented fortune is almost $100 billion more than the Mars candy clan in second place."

“One of the powerful things about intergenerational wealth is they have very long-term time horizons,”

“The best way to reduce paying estate taxes is to give your assets away before they appreciate,”

Read all about our betters:

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/richest-families-in-the-world/

sidd

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #683 on: August 14, 2020, 12:44:18 PM »
 Here’s what extreme heat looks like: profoundly unequal
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/06/climate/climate-change-inequality-heat.html
Quote
But a hotter planet does not hurt equally. If you’re poor and marginalized, you’re likely to be much more vulnerable to extreme heat. You might be unable to afford an air-conditioner, and you might not even have electricity when you need it. You may have no choice but to work outdoors under a sun so blistering that first your knees feel weak and then delirium sets in. Or the heat might bring a drought so punishing that, no matter how hard you work under the sun, your corn withers and your children turn to you in hunger.

It’s not like you can just pack up and leave. So you plant your corn higher up the mountain. You bathe several times a day if you can afford the water. You powder your baby to prevent heat rash. You sleep outdoors when the power goes out, slapping mosquitoes. You sit in front of a fan by yourself, cursed by the twin dangers of isolation and heat.


nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #684 on: August 15, 2020, 11:36:20 AM »
A bit of good news..
This gave me a warm smile

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/14/it-hasnt-sank-in-residents-win-60-rent-reduction-in-london-council-flats
  by Aamna Mohdin

'It hasn't sunk in': Residents win 60% rent reduction in London council flats

1st paragraph:
Hundreds of families in temporary accommodation in east London have had their rent reduced by about 60% following a four-year campaign against their corporate social landlord.

their rent was £356 per week
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

kassy

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #685 on: August 17, 2020, 11:54:01 PM »
Countries around the world are using border surveillance systems against their own citizens


Hamdi was just an infant when his relatives first brought him to the Dadaab refugee camp in north-eastern Kenya to be registered as a refugee – despite the fact he was a Kenyan citizen. Like many ethnic Somali citizens of Kenya living in the vicinity of the camp, they were drawn to the prospect of obtaining food aid for their family.

Since the outbreak of the Somali civil war in the early 1990s, north-eastern Kenya has experienced periodic droughts, propelling many Kenyan Somalis to slip into the refugee system. At Dadaab, they could access free education, food and medical services that, as citizens of one of the country’s most neglected and marginalised regions, were often out of their reach.

Hamdi’s relatives did not anticipate that a seemingly harmless lie would hound him for almost half a decade. Over the last few years, tens of thousands of Kenyan citizens like Hamdi who have tried to obtain a Kenyan national ID have been turned away because their fingerprints are captured in the refugee database.

https://theconversation.com/countries-around-the-world-are-using-border-surveillance-systems-against-their-own-citizens-144399
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

nanning

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #686 on: August 21, 2020, 12:27:39 PM »
Michigan to pay $600 mln to Flint water crisis victims
https://news.trust.org/item/20200820033437-7ttsd/
  by Reuters

»Most of the amount will be reportedly allocated for children who suffered from lead-tainted tapwater after officials switched city's water supply six years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis)

Aug 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. state of Michigan said on Thursday that it had reached a preliminary settlement to pay $600 million to victims of the Flint water crisis, potentially closing a chapter on one of the country's worst public health crises in recent memory.

If approved, the deal would provide the bulk of the funds to children impacted by a poisoning of the water in the city of Flint and would rank as the largest settlement in the state's history, attorney general Dana Nessel said in a statement.

The settlement is the culmination of 18 months of talks over how to compensate residents who were sickened by their tapwater after state officials switched the city's water supply six years ago, sparking a crisis that garnered national attention.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who took over handling of the crisis upon taking office in 2019, acknowledged that the settlement would not solve all problems and vowed to keep allocating resources to ensure Flint's water was safe.

"What happened in Flint should never have happened," Whitmer said in recorded remarks. "The uncertainty and troubles that the people of Flint have endured is unconscionable. It is time for the state to do what it can."

The settlement is subject to approval by a federal judge in Michigan.

In January, the Supreme Court let Flint residents pursue a civil rights lawsuit that accused the city and government officials of knowingly allowing the water supply to become contaminated with lead.

Flint switched its public water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River to cut costs during a financial crisis. But the corrosive river water caused lead to leach from pipes, and the city switched back to Lake Huron water the following year.

More than 25,000 people were harmed through exposure to contaminants in Flint, including more than 5,000 children younger than 12, court records showed as of January.

[/i](Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru, Sebastien Malo in Montreal and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Rosalba O'Brien)[/i]
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with what other people from your groups think of you, that prevents you from living freely and nobly" - Nanning
Why do you keep accumulating stuff?

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #687 on: September 05, 2020, 03:54:46 PM »
Worries grow over a K-shaped economic recovery that favors the wealthy
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/04/worries-grow-over-a-k-shaped-economic-recovery-that-favors-the-wealthy.html
Quote
As the economy struggles to shake off the pandemic effects, worries are growing that the recovery could look like a K.
That would be one where growth continues but is uneven, split between sectors and income groups.
One obvious area of concern is the dichotomy of the stock market vs the real economy, especially considering that 52% of the market is owned by the top 1% of earners.
“Let’s not get lost on different letters of the alphabet,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. “There are certainly parts of the economy that need more work.”

gerontocrat

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #688 on: September 05, 2020, 05:14:11 PM »
One obvious area of concern is the dichotomy of the stock market vs the real economy, especially considering that 52% of the market is owned by the top 1% of earners.
“Let’s not get lost on different letters of the alphabet,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. “There are certainly parts of the economy that need more work.”
[/quote]

Shock, horror? No. Only continues what has happened since the Financial meltdown of 2008-2010.
"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!"
"And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump
"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

oren

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #689 on: September 06, 2020, 11:20:57 PM »
When the government and central banks are hell bent on making stocks rise and preventing any kind of fall, while not giving a damn about the average citizen, no wonder the result is a huge K.

sidd

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #690 on: September 17, 2020, 12:18:33 AM »
Peterson at phys.org: surprise,surprise: lawmakers vote with their wallets

"strong associations between the financial holdings of legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives and how those lawmakers voted on key financial legislation. The study suggests that many lawmakers voted in ways that benefited their personal finances, regardless of whether those votes were consistent with their espoused politics. "

"House members who owned stocks in firms that would benefit from financial deregulation voted for financial deregulation"

"House members who had invested in financial and automotive stocks supported legislation aimed at bailing out the financial and auto sectors"

" a detailed examination of the financial holdings of all House members who voted on five key pieces of economic legislation between 1999 and 2008: the Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill in 1999 (which repealed Glass-Steagall); the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (which involved substantial deregulation to the financial industry); the two 2008 votes on the Troubled Assets Relief Program (which bailed out major banks); and the Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act in 2008 (which bailed out the auto industry)."

"In four of the five instances, legislators largely voted in line with what was most beneficial to their financial interests. The sole exception was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000—though that may be due to the fact that the bill was bundled into a much larger omnibus legislation package at the tail end of a lame-duck congressional session."

" more likely to vote in support of their own financial holdings, rather than in line with the political positions they espouse on the campaign trail"

"an easy fix would be to require that members of Congress not own individual stocks, instead moving their investments into mutual funds or a blind trust."

" the finding also raises some interesting questions about similar potential conflicts in other governmental institutions"

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-financial-key-votes-house-lawmakers.html

paper is supposed to be at doi: 10.1111/lsq.12294

Oddly when i go to the journal site, the August issue is not online. Will chheck next week.

sidd

vox_mundi

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #691 on: September 17, 2020, 01:20:02 AM »
It might have been embargoed. This link works ...

Jordan Carr Peterson, et.al., The Private Interests of Public Officials: Financial Regulation in the US Congress, Legislative Studies Quarterly (2020)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lsq.12294
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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #692 on: September 19, 2020, 03:30:50 PM »
Billionaire Chuck Feeney Achieves Goal of Giving Away His Fortune
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/19/billionaire-chuck-feeney-achieves-goal-of-giving-away-his-fortune

Chuck Feeney has achieved his lifetime ambition: giving away his $8bn (£6bn) fortune while he is still around to see the impact it has made.

For the past 38 years, Feeney, an Irish American who made billions from a duty-free shopping empire, has been making endowments to charities and universities across the world with the goal of “striving for zero … to give it all away”.

This week Feeney, 89, achieved his goal. The Atlantic Philanthropies, the foundation he set up in secret in 1982 and transferred almost all of his wealth to, has finally run out of money.

From his small rented apartment in San Francisco, he had a message for other members of the super-rich, who may have pledged to give away part of their fortunes but only after they have died: “To those wondering about Giving While Living: try it, you’ll like it.”

... Feeney was influenced by Andrew Carnegie’s essay The Gospel of Wealth, with its declaration that “the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor”.

“I have always empathised with people who have it tough in life,” Feeney said in a rare interview with Ireland’s RTE in 2010. “And the world is full of people who don’t get enough to eat.”



...His attitude to money is in stark contrast to his Duty Free Shoppers (DFS) Group empire co-founder, Robert Miller, the 293rd richest person in the world, who has a $6bn fortune. Miller has luxury homes in Hong Kong, New York, Paris and Gstaad, Switzerland, as well the 14,500-hectare (35,800 acres) Gunnerside estate country park in Yorkshire. Miller has three socialite daughters: crown princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, Alexandra Miller, and Pia Getty.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_of_Wealth.
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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #693 on: September 21, 2020, 01:57:34 AM »
Secret Documents Show How Criminals Use Famous Banks To Finance Terror And Death
https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/global-banks-defy-u-s-crackdowns-by-serving-oligarchs-criminals-and-terrorists/
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/20/leak-reveals-2tn-of-possibly-corrupt-us-financial-activity
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-files-financial-scandal-criminal-networks

Global banks defy U.S. crackdowns by serving oligarchs, criminals and terrorists

Secret U.S. government documents reveal that JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and other big banks have defied money laundering crackdowns by moving staggering sums of illicit cash for shadowy characters and criminal networks that have spread chaos and undermined democracy around the world.

The records show that five global banks — JPMorgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon — kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players even after U.S. authorities fined these financial institutions for earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money.


And the US government, despite its vast powers, fails to stop it.

... JPMorgan also processed more than $50 million in payments over a decade, the records show, for Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump. The bank shuttled at least $6.9 million in Manafort transactions in the 14 months after he resigned from the campaign amid a swirl of money laundering and corruption allegations spawning from his work with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.

Money laundering is a crime that makes other crimes possible. It can accelerate economic inequality, drain public funds, undermine democracy, and destabilize nations — and the banks play a key role. “Some of these people in those crisp white shirts in their sharp suits are feeding off the tragedy of people dying all over the world,” said Martin Woods, a former suspicious transactions investigator for Wachovia.

Laws that were meant to stop financial crime have instead allowed it to flourish. So long as a bank files a notice that it may be facilitating criminal activity, it all but immunizes itself and its executives from criminal prosecution. The suspicious activity alert effectively gives them a free pass to keep moving the money and collecting the fees.

The Trump administration has made it even harder to hold executives personally accountable, under guidance by former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein that warned government agencies against “piling on.”

... In all, suspicious activity reports in the FinCEN Files flagged more than $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017— including $514 billion at JPMorgan and $1.3 trillion at Deutsche Bank. Western banks could have blocked almost any of them, but in most cases they kept the money moving and kept collecting their fees.

... No wonder Trump doesn't want Deutsche Bank to release his banking records
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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #694 on: December 11, 2020, 08:28:06 PM »
Polarization Increases With Economic Decline, Becoming Cripplingly Contagious
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-polarization-economic-decline-cripplingly-contagious.html

A model developed by a team of researchers—including Nolan McCarty of Princeton University—shows how group polarization, rising inequality, and economic decline may be strongly connected.

The model develops a theory that group polarization tends to soar in times of economic duress and rising inequality. Yet, even after financial conditions improve, these divisions may remain deeply rooted.

This is why strengthened social safety nets are needed to help minimize conflict across social, ethnic, and racial groups, the researchers argue in Science Advances.

Using models of cultural evolution and evolutionary game theory, the team designed their model to examine people's willingness to interact with people outside their own social group.

The model is based on a few assumptions—the first being that an individual's economic success is tied to interactions with others and the performance of the underlying economy. They also assume that people tend to mimic the behavior of seemingly "successful" people so that social behaviors can spread through the public.

Lastly they assume that interactions within social in-group behavior is generally less risky with lower rewards while interactions with out-group members are more risky, but entail greater upside. This means that when economic conditions become more challenging, people will tend to prefer the safe bet of interacting with their own kind and avoid interactions with outsiders. As such behavior is mimicked, the interactions across groups declines precipitously.

The model may be helpful in explaining political trends seen around the world. First, the model supports theories arguing that economic shocks embolden those far-right movements predicated vilifying social out-groups. For example, the Great Depression and Global Financial Crisis both led to increased support for right-wing populists in a number of countries including the United States, and the United Kingdom.

When it comes to inequality, most models suggest that a significant wealth gap tends to empower those on the left, as they will seek income redistribution. The researchers' new model doesn't necessarily show such a shift, but instead a general move away from interactions across social identity groups. Since cross-group interactions are economically valuable, society gets poorer.

"Rather than continue the unproductive debate over whether 'economic anxiety' or group conflict is most responsible for our deeply divided politics, scholars should spend more effort considering the debilitating feedback between economics and identity," said McCarty.

A.J. Stewart, el al., "Polarization under rising inequality and economic decline," Science Advances (2020).
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/50/eabd4201
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― anonymous

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #695 on: December 18, 2020, 04:24:55 AM »
The Rich in New York Confront an Unfamiliar Word: No
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/nyregion/nyc-homeless-hotel.html
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The pandemic is causing inequality to soar, but increasingly the privileged are discovering that they can’t bend the world to their will.
;D

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #696 on: December 18, 2020, 03:04:54 PM »
The USA has this really segregated housing style. If you are rich enough you do not need to see the ugly. Of course this is a very capitalistic way of doing housing but capitalist production is the same. If you are rich enough you can buy what you want and you never see the destruction and exploitation in it.
Þetta minnismerki er til vitnis um að við vitum hvað er að gerast og hvað þarf að gera. Aðeins þú veist hvort við gerðum eitthvað.

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #697 on: December 18, 2020, 04:27:24 PM »
Is the USA alone in that, kassy?

Tom_Mazanec

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #698 on: December 31, 2020, 09:01:39 PM »
The Top 10%'s Bubble Is About to Burst
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec20/top-10-bubble12-20.html
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When the top 10%'s bubble pops in 2021, the loss of illusions/delusions of security and wealth will be shattering to all those who believed artifice and illusory "wealth" were real.

John Palmer.

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Re: Economic Inequality
« Reply #699 on: January 01, 2021, 02:54:52 AM »
Had fun with this article that nominates Elon Musk for Grifter of the Year among others.

Spoiler, Bezos wins.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/12/presenting-the-2020-griftie-awards