Economic Inequality

The Dems should be all over this situation but instead they want to mess around with Epstein and other such nonsense none of which will improve the lives of Americans on iota.

Economic inequality should be the priority as elections start coming into view…for instance…

On Saturday, data shared by The Kobeissi Letter highlights a stark divergence in wealth growth since 1976.

According to the post on X, the real wealth of the top 0.001% of U.S. households has surged roughly 3,500% over that period.

By comparison, the top 0.01% and 0.1% saw gains of about 2,200% and 1,200%, respectively, while the average household’s wealth increased by just 200%.

The post also noted a sharp rise in ultra-wealthy households, estimating that about 430,000 U.S. households now hold at least $30 million in net worth, including roughly 74,000 worth more than $100 million.

A large share of wealth at the top is tied to financial markets. “~72% of wealth for the top 0.1% is concentrated in corporate equities, mutual funds, and private businesses,” the post said.

In contrast, lower-income households have struggled to build wealth.

“The bottom 50% of US households had more debt than assets for nearly 2 decades,” the post stated, adding that their net worth turned positive only after 2020, aided by stimulus checks and rising home values.

Summing up the trend, the post concluded: “Asset owners are the only winners.”

https://www.benzinga.com/news/politics/26/04/51903117/us-wealth-inequality-hits-record-high-as-top-0-001-gains-3500-since-1976-while-average-households-lag-at-200

Let’s be honest the plan is to pay workers as little as possible to keep the CEOs rolling in bonuses….

Janine Jackson interviewed Institute for Policy Studies’ Sarah Anderson about “successful” corporations paying poverty wages for the April 17, 2026, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Janine Jackson: In 2024, Forbes asked, “What Is the Secret to Walmart’s Success?” The answer:

Walmart’s strategy is boring but reliable. The foundation is provided by the scale of the business, creating the fuel necessary to maintain cost leadership.

In 2025, the Economist explained to readers “How Walmart Became a Tech Giant—and Took Over the World.” The answer, well, founder Sam Walton, a “trucker-capped, pickup-driving penny-pincher,” had a simple idea: “Keep costs low, pass savings on to customers, win market share, harness scale to further lower costs, and listen as the cash registers sing.”

Early this year, Inc. Magazine gave us “One Bold Decision Helped Make Walmart a Trillion-Dollar Company.” That story says:

Early this year, Inc. Magazine gave us “One Bold Decision Helped Make Walmart a Trillion-Dollar Company.” That story says:

Most experts see the company’s tremendous growth as a triumph of technology, including AI, and that’s certainly true. Walmart has used its heft, highly efficient warehouse network and the ubiquity of its stores as a competitive advantage.

But oho, the shocker, the big reveal, is that former CEO, Doug McMillon, “visited Walmart stores and asked the people working there what they needed. He listened to their answers and he started paying them more.”

Well, I hope you’re sitting down for this: “To begin with, every associate, as Walmart calls employees, would earn at least $9 an hour and soon move up to $10 an hour.” McMillon took home $27.4 million in 2024.

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/its-all-about-keeping-wages-at-poverty-levels-to-overpay-their-ceos/

There you have a simple plan….give the voters something that will help make their wallets fatter and you have hit on a winner.

But instead the Dems crawl back to the high dollar donors and become their representatives not those of the people….they will be losers as long as they lay with the dollars.

You can change that but instead you had rather stand on the sideline and wish for change….and whine about your plight.

Not coming as long as you have that kind of attitude. PERIOD!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Another Covid Victim

There is so much bad news around our pandemic…..the many deaths….the people that we know and love are gone……the drag on our economy in so many forms……now we are told that the nation’s inequlity has grown during our battle with the virus……

Stock ownership is more concentrated than ever, Federal Reserve data show, with the wealthiest 10% of households owning 89% of US stocks. The stocks differential is reflected in the growing wealth inequity, CNBC reports, with 1% of Americans holding 32% of wealth, also a record. “The top 1% own a lot of stock, the rest of us own a little,” said Steven Rosenthal of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. During the pandemic, the 1% added more than $6.5 trillion in corporate equities and mutual fund wealth, and while the bottom 90% picked up $1.2 trillion.

Concentration increased despite the fact that more people own stock now. Robinhood, for example, has posted more than 10 million new accounts over the past two years. But the new accounts, often held by younger investors, are small, averaging about $4,500 at Robinhood. So when the market goes up, those accounts profit much less than those of wealthy investors with many shares. “Many of the younger investors also bought in at higher prices, compared to bigger investors who have been in the market for years and see larger gains,” Rosenthal said.

The wealth inequality is clear across the board. The richest 10% also own 45% of US real estate, 54% of pension entitlements, 85% of private businesses, and 34% of consumer durable goods, per the Street. The stock market is behind most of the wealth creation and increased inequality during the pandemic; it’s risen almost 40% since January 2020. Stocks accounted for almost 70% of the gains in wealth by the nation’s richest 1% over the past year and a half, per CNBC.

Just more depressing news……more ways for this cancer of inequality to keep the people from achieving what has been called “the American Dream”…..

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Continuing Black Protests

Black Lives Matter have been protesting for years now trying to bring some notice to the injustice that is still occurring in the US.

For the most part they are non-violent…..I know there is reports of vandalism and looting…..for the most part it is thugs using the protests as cover for their criminality….it is mostly citizens protesting calmly and with purpose.

I need to ask….what has these non-violent protests accomplished?

I know there are bringing a focus on the injustice and inequality in our society….but the conversation around these protest are more about the isolated acts of criminality than the issues that caused the protest to start.

What will it take for this situation to generate a real conversation on the social inequality?

Black Lives Matter has brought about a few “promises” from governmental agencies…..

While it is too early to assess the global impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, emerging evidence indicates that it has made significant progress. The first significant impact of the protests has been the toppling of Confederate and slavery-related statues around the world — statues that had stood all-too-proudly for centuries. In England, protesters toppled the statue of Edward Colston, a prominent slave trader. In Belgium, protesters set fire to a statue of King Leopold II. In the USA, statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln have been toppled. Airports and schools are also being renamed.

Second, city councillors have vowed to reform police departments. From Minneapolis to New York City, and from Los Angeles to Denver, mayors have pledged to take money away from the police and reinvest it in community programmes. In Los Angeles, for example, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that he would redirect US$250 million from the police budget into healthcare, jobs and ‘healing’ programmes for the city’s communities of colour. Democrats in Congress have also unveiled sweeping legislation on police reform, including banning chokeholds and mandating federal police officers to use body and dashboard cameras.

Third, corporations such as Apple, Facebook, Google, Reddit and Amazon have promised greater diversity and inclusivity. In fact, Reddit co-founder, Alexis Ohanian recently resigned via a video urging the board to fill his seat with a black candidate. Ohanian also pledged US$1 million to Colin Kaepernick’s Know your Rights Camp in the announcement. On top of this, a new database has been set up to collect video footage that documents police violence at demonstrations across the country.

https://www.merit.unu.edu/black-voices-matter-what-have-the-protests-achieved-and-should-they-always-be-non-violent/

(By the way….I do not agree with this supposition…..what it calls for has not worked in the past and most likely will not again)

These promises are nothing but a pacifying move…..cities are promising reform and yet the killings continue and the cops still walk or get slap on the wrest for their murder…..and corporations are throwing money at the problems hoping it will put them in a favorable light…..basically the same crap they pulled in the 60s and we all know how that worked out, right?

I sorry to be a downer but I do not see any change in the future because of these protest….any change will be incremental at best…..and that tactic has gotten Blacks where they are today.

If they want to progress then there must be a new way….and that way is for them to work out…..but without another tactic nothing will change.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden’s And Racial Justice

Pres. Biden has used his pen and signed a series of EOs that will try to reverse some of the racial inequalities….another promise he is trying to make good on…..

President Biden on Tuesday signed four executive actions meant to advance racial equity in the United States, including directing his administration to fully implement a law combating housing discrimination and another to mitigate xenophobia against Asian Americans.

Biden signed a memorandum directing the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to begin the process of rooting out systemic racism in the housing market by analyzing areas where the previous administration’s policies undermined fair housing laws, according to senior administration officials.

…

Biden also signed an executive order ending the Department of Justice’s use of private prisons, as part of the new administration’s broader criminal justice reform agenda.

Additionally, the president signed a memorandum directing federal agencies, including the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Justice, to take steps to stop xenophobia and violence towards Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The memo also acknowledges what officials described as xenophobic behavior on the part of the previous administration.

Finally, Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to engage regularly with Tribal governments in order to strengthen the relationship between the federal government and American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/535900-biden-to-sign-series-of-executive-orders-aimed-at-racial-equity

Read the entire EO for yourself…..

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/26/executive-order-reforming-our-incarceration-system-to-eliminate-the-use-of-privately-operated-criminal-detention-facilities/

Biden is off to a good start.

How long can this last?

I would like someone from Biden’s inner circle to explain how this will solve the problems we have with racial justice….

I wish I was more optimistic.

Your thoughts will be appreciated.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Are You Middle Class?

Remember when that was something to strive for in your job search? Remember when that was the American Dream? Remember when you could work 40 hours a week and still have enough to live on and even save a little for retirement?

If you remember that then you are an old fart and are remembering something from the “good old days”.

The American Conservative has looked into the Middle Class……

Can we define the middle class in practical terms? To be sure, there are probably as many sociological definitions of the middle class as there are commentators seeking definitions. So let’s set aside the socio-swamp of beliefs, values, and taxonomies of class in favor of a definition with measurable thresholds.

Many commentators attempt to define the middle class by income, and people tend to self-report that they belong to the middle class based on income. The self-evident way to define the middle class by income is to set aside the top 10 percent (households earning $145,000 or more) and those defined as poor by the U.S. Census Bureau (households making less than $25,000), roughly 25 percent of all households.

Somewhere between the two is the middle class, though trying to narrow it down forces us into an impassable statistical thicket. For example, government agencies report income in different ways. The IRS reports individual tax returns (147 million) while other agencies report household income (117 million households).

Are You Really Middle Class?

If you are asking yourself….”what the Hell happened”? Then this can help explain it as simply as possible…..

Something massive and important has happened in the United States over the past 50 years: Economic wealth has become increasingly concentrated among a small group of ultra-wealthy Americans.

You can read lengthy books on this subject, like economist Thomas Piketty’s recent best-seller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (the book runs 696 pages and weighs in at 2.5 pounds). You can see references to this in the campaigns of major political candidates this cycle, who talk repeatedly about how something has gone very wrong in America.

Donald Trump’s motto is to make America great again, while Bernie Sanders’s campaign focused on reducing income inequality. And there’s a reason this message is resonating with voters:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/this-cartoon-explains-how-the-rich-got-rich-and-the-poor-got-poor

We need to assign guilt to the best person….Ronald Reagan….his policies started this decline and it has never let up……

The Middle Class is quickly disappearing and as it does it is taking the American Dream with it.

And the GOP wants you to be happy with your decline…..

Listening to Republicans, it’s apparent they don’t have much respect for the intelligence of the American people.

Over 70 percent of Americans want a national health care system like every other developed country in the world has, but the GOP tells us that we just aren’t smart enough to make it work. It’ll be too confusing and complex for average Americans, they say, and, besides that, if the government “takes over” our health care system, we’re on our way to tyranny.

About two-thirds of Americans think that we should have free college education for anybody intellectually capable of attending, and free trade schools as well—like pretty much every other developed country in the world (and quite a few of the developing countries). Republicans tell us that we can’t use government funds to pay off our nation’s $1.5 trillion in student debt because we just borrowed that exact amount last year to give tax rebates to billionaires, so there’s nothing left. We’re just not smart enough to fix the problem.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/04/04/republicans-have-put-our-country-path-warp-speed-decline-and-they-want-you-think

As the article says….”as long as the GOP gets some of the people to believe their bullshit all the time”…..the rest of us are screwed!

On a side note……the Pentagon is also in the Middle Class screwing game……

According to SAIS Professor Hal Brands, progressives and Americans should embrace the social benefits military spending offers to the middle class. Not only does American military strength support the liberal world order that makes the world “safe for democracy,” Brands claimed, but military spending undergirds millions of middle-class jobs for service members, civilian employees, and contractors for the Pentagon.

In reality, the opposite is true: American military adventurism and massive spending undermines middle-class prosperity and makes the world less free and secure. A militarized approach to American foreign policy harms global freedom and security far more than it helps.

How the Pentagon Budget is a Threat to the Middle Class

You can stop this…….VOTE!

Vote for the candidate that has the best plan to stop this slide.

Vote for the candidate that best has the best interests of the country at heart.

VOTE!

Closing Thought–29Mar19

I recall my first job as a teenager…..65 cents an hour at McDonalds….and after a month or so it went up to 75 cents…..

I walk down that memory lane because of something I read the other day…..

It seems that if minimum wage had kept pace with Wall Street bonuses then the minimum would be over $30 an hour…..read the story and listen to the video……

Wall Street employees saw their typical annual bonus slip by 17 percent last year to $153,700, according to new data from the New York State Comptroller. But don’t feel sorry for the banking set just yet — even including down years like 2018, bankers’ bonuses have jumped by 1,000 percent since 1985.

By comparison, the federal minimum wage has increased about 116 percent during the same period, according to an analysis from the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning research center that used the comptroller’s latest data. If the minimum wage had grown at the same pace as Wall Street bonuses, fast-food workers and other low-wage workers would earn a baseline wage of $33.51 an hour, the group said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minimum-wage-would-be-33-today-if-it-grew-like-wall-street-bonuses-have/

If it had kept pace with the bonuses then the Middle Class would be in better shape than they are today.

Corporate Death Penalty

Think back to the 2008 collapse of the economic structure….it was the banks that lead the way and yet they were not punished for killing so many pensions….at best there was a slap on wrist and they promise not to do it again…..and if you will notice they are doing it again,

It is time for the government to bring the pain to these lousy players in our economy.

Bring back a corporate death penalty……

Let’s begin with a SCOTUS dissenting opinion from 1935…..

“The prevalence of the corporation in America has led men of this generation to act, at times, as if the privilege of doing business in corporate form were inherent in the citizen, and has led them to accept the evils attendant upon the free and unrestricted use of the corporate mechanism as if these evils were the inescapable price of civilized life, and, hence to be borne with resignation.

“Throughout the greater part of our history, a different view prevailed.

“Although the value of this instrumentality in commerce and industry was fully recognized, incorporation for business was commonly denied long after it had been freely granted for religious, educational, and charitable purposes.

“It was denied because of fear. Fear of encroachment upon the liberties and opportunities of the individual. Fear of the subjection of labor to capital. Fear of monopoly. Fear that the absorption of capital by corporations, and their perpetual life, might bring evils similar to those which attended mortmain [immortality]. There was a sense of some insidious menace inherent in large aggregations of capital, particularly when held by corporations.”

—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1933 dissent in Liggett v. Lee

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/08/its-time-bring-back-corporate-death-penalty

The limp wrist attempt to make corporations, especially the banks, was quickly pushed aside as soon as another corporate titan comes to power….time to make any penalties permanent…..time for the government to work for the people and not just the corporations.

This may be wishful thinking but I do feel the country is starting to realize just how bad corporations are acting and want accountability for their CRIMES.

2020 could be the beginning of the revolution to get the greed and corruption out of our society, especially from the corporations.

But first we must VOTE!

Closing Thought–30Sep18

Here is the perfect example of American justice and how uneven it is spread around our society……

In 2008 the big banks tanked our economy billions were lost, many people lost their retirements, it was a disaster……and of all those bankers that tanked the economy none were made to pay for the treachery….and then you read a story like this……

Ten years after the behavior of over-leveraged and fraudulent banks created a global financial disaster that resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in losses; a multi-trillion bailout using public money; and millions of people losing their homes to foreclosure, but saw not one high-level financial executive go to jail, a man in Florida has been sentenced to a 20-year prison term for stealing $600 worth of cigarettes from a local convenience store.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/24/ten-years-after-not-one-high-level-banker-sent-jail-tanking-global-economy-man-gets

Are you surprised at this? I am not…..if you are not wealthy then you are crap under the boots of the elites….but that is okay for things will change with the next election….or is it the one after that……maybe later?

Oh yeah….I believe the cigarette guy was black….go figure!

What Happened After 2008?

A decade on…..and counting.

Remember those days….the economic crash caused by banks playing loose and fast with accounts and trickery…..it all came back to bite them in the ass and we all then decided that banks need to be watched and regulated for the protection of our cash held by them.

For awhile it look good…it looked like we would do what needed doing to make goddamn sure that this could never happen again……and then the big banks started their assault on the people that would control their thievery and then we elected a tool of big capital and most of the regs are being pushed back….and history will be repeated…but while we wait for the next “market correction”…….

A few years ago, one of Karen Petrou’s banking clients gave her an unusual assignment: It wanted her to write a paper laying out “the unintended consequences of the post-financial-crisis capital framework.” Petrou is the co-founder of Federal Financial Analytics Inc., a financial services consulting firm in Washington that focuses on public policy and regulatory issues. She is also, as the American Banker once described her, “the sharpest mind analyzing banking policy today — maybe ever.” Whenever I’m writing about banking issues, she’s the first person I call.

Writing that paper caused Petrou to ask a question she’d never really considered before: Did the bank regulations enacted after the 2008 crisis — along with the Federal Reserve’s post-crisis monetary policy — exacerbate income inequality? Her answer, which she laid out in a series of blog posts, as well as a lecture at the New York Federal Reserve in March, was yes. “Post-crisis monetary and regulatory policy had an unintended but nonetheless dramatic impact on the income and wealth divides,” she wrote recently.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-06/inequality-why-bank-rules-and-fed-rates-hurt-middle-class

While the nation is focused on Russia and whether they are bad players on the world stage….the inequality in this country grows with every economic report and NO ONE cares….instead they will slobber over slogans and BS and a promise of better days and yet those days are getting further and further away for most in the middle class.

This recovery has not been great for workers. They have seen modest real wage gains over the last five years, but these gains have not come close to making up the ground lost in the recession and the first years of the recovery.

Nonetheless, real wages have been growing for most of the last five years. The last month has been an exception to this pattern, not because nominal wages have grown less, but because we had a large jump in energy prices, which has depressed real wage growth. Here’s picture for the last five years.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/07/the-story-of-stagnant-wage-growth/

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Inequality

Economic Inequality

Another Covid Victim

The Continuing Black Protests

Biden’s And Racial Justice

Are You Middle Class?

Closing Thought–29Mar19

Corporate Death Penalty

Closing Thought–30Sep18

What Happened After 2008?