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POPSNational Gaps Between Rich & Poor - USA is No. 3
When I saw this headline, I thought for sure the ole USA would be at the top of the list but NO there really are greedier nations (people) residing on this Earth. Though only 2, for USA hit the number 3 slot. It's a pity that the human race has yet to understand that we are all one, all traveling in the same direction of unknowing. Yet material-wise we struggle to have a one-upmanship on one another; a need of sorts to look down your nose at those financially beneath you due to hard luck or heritage. The visualization of this gap is hardest to stomach. With architecturally handsome buildings on one side of the picture (You can envision those within these structures looking out their ivory tower windows at the ants below.) and poor people, on the other side, in fetal-like positions, huddled against buildings to protect themselves from the elements, cold, hungry and hopeless. It’s the food-chain, only the winners aren’t the fittest but the greediest.
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POPSTop Percenters - Raise our Taxes Now We would see a minimal tax increase -- from 35% to 39.6%, a rate still far lower than the one under President Reagan -- but the increased revenue would raise an estimated $43 billion per year. The group’s founders include Chuck Collins, who inherited some of the Oscar Mayer meat fortune and who has long been involved in agitating on income-inequality issues. He may be best known for co-authoring the 2003 book "Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes" with Bill Gates Sr. The book made the case for retaining the federal estate tax. Wealth for the Common Good on Tuesday sent its request to President Obama and to House and Senate leaders, including a petition with more than 1,000 signatures.
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POPSEast Bay poverty rates show 1 in 10 below federal poverty line
More: in real terms — adjusted for inflation — East Bay incomes have been flat for two years. East Bay residents make about $3,500 less than they did in 2000 if their incomes are adjusted for inflation, said Jennifer Lin, a researcher for the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. Lin points out that averages can also disguise the growing inequality the census numbers reveal. There are fewer East Bay households now making the middle incomes of from $75,000 to $150,000, and more people—especially Latinos and African-Americans working in low-wage service industries—are having a harder time making enough money to get by without public help.… Homeownership declined in both counties, which was no surprise to a region hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis… For homeowners with a mortgage, the median monthly cost last year was $2,755 in Alameda County and $2,842 in Contra Costa County. For renters, the median monthly rent was $1,192 in Alameda County and $1,254 in Contra C
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POPSUS is slipping toward Plutocracy: Money rules
Latest example is healthcare reform. In the second quarter of 2009, the health industry spent $133 million on lobbyists, reckons the Center for Responsive Politics. That doesn’t count lobbying by associations. The US Chamber of Commerce alone spent $26 million on lobbying in the first half of this year, “a good chunk” on the health issue, says Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the center. Polls show the public wants healthcare reform and a public-insurance option. So the health-insurance industry is pretending to be in favor of reform while trying to kill it through campaign contributions, ads, and lobbying, says Wendell Potter, who until recently led corporate communications at CIGNA, a major health-insurance company. Moreover trade unions provide some balance of power to the might of business and wealth. In Sweden, 85 percent of the labor force is organized; in other major nations 35-40 percent. Compare with 7.4 percent of workers in the private sector in the US.
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POPSThe One Percent Myth "In The Constitution of Liberty, F. A. Hayek stated that, "It would probably be true...to say that the illusion that by means of progressive taxation the burden can be shifted substantially onto the shoulders of the wealthy has been the chief reason why taxation has increased as fast as it has done and that, under the influence of this illusion, the masses have come to accept a much heavier load than they would have done otherwise." "The 1% Myth was a useful tool deployed by Liberals to make the majority of the American public feel like victims so they would vote for the candidate who offered them the prospect of seizing from the rich and redistributing to average Americans what rightfully belonged to them in the first place. It was a wonderful distraction to prevent the majority of the public from realizing that they were the real target all along." Kind of a Clumsy clip. Great info and further detail in source article.
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