Archives for January 2017

I recently read with horror the 2017 wealth inequality run amok review by Oxfam, entitled, An Economy for the 99%.

Oxfam is an organization that fights against world-wide poverty. They are the ones that Christoper McCandless (aka Alexander Supertramp) donated his Harvard tuition to before he set out for the wilds of Alaska in the incredible movie (and true story), Into the Wild.

The most salient fact in the report is that 8 of the world’s richest human beings now own as much wealth as the poorest 50% of all humans. That’s right…8 own as much wealth as 3.5+ billion.

That’s not the 1%, that’s the .00000023%.

That degree of wealth concentration has increased greatly over just the last few years. The last time Oxfam reported the figure it was 62 of the richest owned more than 1/2. So, it’s evident that wealth inequality is rising rapidly and exponentially in similar fashion to global warming. Together these are the twin threats that might just do us in once and for all as a species.

I read an interesting article on Vox (Ezra Klein’s blog) this morning written by an entrepreneur, who, despite the fact that he had done well, refused to take full credit for it. In fact, far from it. He attributed his well-doing primarily to privilege (and luck). It was refreshing to read about someone admitting as much, as opposed to grandiose boasting about bootstrapping his way to success.

The fact is that our entire economy is largely based on a privileged class of capital-hoarders-cum-job-creators who exploit the less fortunate and thereby amass increasing levels of concentrated wealth and power that pass from privileged generation to privileged generation. That’s our “American” neoliberal-infused style of capitalism run amok folks.

And we just elected the poster man-child of this f’ed up system as president of the United States!

I was watching one of those CNN “town-halls” the other day where they had good-ole Bernie Sanders answering questions from the crowd. This Trump supporter stood up and lofted what he thought was a doosey at Bernie. You see, he was a “small business owner” who hated regulations. So he asked Bernie, what about that?…what about guys like him drowning in the regulatory tsunami? Bernie asked him very plainly what particular regulations he was referring to.

Most of the time, they are referring to the tax code, which is, admittedly, ridiculous. But do you know why it is that way? Because of guys like Donald Trump.

Yea, that’s right, Donald Trump!

The guy who won’t even release his tax returns to the public. The guy who we know used a yuuuuge net operating loss carryover to wipe out years of taxes. The guy who, despite his billions, pays no taxes! So who does pay them? Joe Blow small business owner who’s standing there trying to trip Bernie up, that’s who.

Guys like Donald Trump pay millions upon millions to lobbyists who little by little, layer after layer, convince the Federal government to turn the U.S. tax code into the morass of complexity that it has become. They do so for a reason, to benefit themselves at the expense of YOU.

The result, they keep getting richer, while the rest of us keep getting poorer. And the worldwide effect of that is exactly what Oxfam is reporting.

It is amusing and alarming to me that there are so many Joe Blow small business owners out there who actually think Donald J. Trump is the solution to their problems, when, in reality, he is the cause of them!

What’s the solution to wealth inequality run amok? Well, this entire blog, with its message of impact mindfulness, I believe qualifies as an idea to combat the problem. The Oxfam report certainly lays out similar ideas pretty well. You can read a summary of those here. In fact, I would consider it “required reading” for any fan of this blog.

Perhaps that’s the one good thing that can come out of this fiasco.

That, I’m afraid, is my best hope for the near future.