How The Age Of Billionaires Ends

Serious proposals are on the table to address the deepening divide between the uber-rich and the rest of us. Every month or so there’s a stunning new headline statistic about just how stark our economic divide has become. Understanding that this divide exists is a good start. Appreciating that a deeply unfair ... Read more

Do We Really Need Billionaires?

In March 2018, Forbes reported that it had identified 2,208 billionaires from 72 countries and territories. Collectively, this group was worth $9.1 trillion, an increase in wealth of 18 percent since the preceding year. Americans led the way with a record 585 billionaires, followed by mainland China which, ... Read more

By the Best Definition, The Poverty Rate Should Be Tripled

The World Bank defines poverty as “pronounced deprivation in well-being,” not only of material needs but also of health and education and security and public voice and the “opportunity to better one’s life” and the “capability of the individual to ... Read more

Research Shows Affluent Americans Barely Recognize US Income Gap

A new report from the Federal Reserve highlights the bleak economic prospects for young Americans, concluding that millennials are in much worse financial shape than earlier generations (at the same age) in terms of their relative income and wealth. These findings are not ... Read more

Tale Of Two Depressions

Mainstream economists continue to discuss the two great crises of capitalism during the past century just like the pillars of society performed in the brothel—a “house of infinite mirrors and theaters”—in Jean Genet’s The Balcony.* The order they represent is indeed threatened by an uprising in the streets, and the only ... Read more

What Does Inequality Cost The Average American? About $150K

Belgian waffles. Belgian beers. Americans love ’em. But what Americans really need from Belgium has nothing to do with beer or breakfast treats. We need Belgium’s much more egalitarian distribution of wealth. The English philosopher Francis Bacon once long ago compared wealth to manure. ... Read more

Fixing The Crisis Of ‘Runaway Wealth’

The next Congress faces a stunning array of challenges — on health care, gun policy, climate change, you name it. One crucial challenge starved of attention, however, is what I call runaway inter-generational wealth. That’s where the wealth of a country’s richest families snowballs from one generation to the ... Read more

The Evidence Pours In: Poverty Getting Much Worse In America

According to the Credit Suisse 2018 Global Wealth Databook, 34 million American adults are among the WORLD’S POOREST 10%. How is that possible? In a word, debt. In more excruciating words: stifling, misery-inducing, deadly amounts of debt for the poorest Americans. And it goes ... Read more

Wealth Of Three Richest US Families Grew By 6,000% Since 1982

One troubling indicator that we are drifting toward a society governed by the wealthy is the expanding fortunes of multi-generational wealth dynasties. The three wealthiest US families are the Waltons of Walmart, the Mars candy family and the Koch brothers, heirs to the country’s ... Read more

Waffles, Beer, And The Penalty We Pay For Tolerating Inequality

Belgium is spreading about as well as any nation on Earth, according to data the Swiss bank Credit Suisse details in its new Global Wealth Report 2018. No other major society currently sports a distribution of wealth much more equitable than Belgium’s. How do we know? The new Credit ... Read more