Top 0.1 Percent Has More Wealth Than Bottom 90 Percent

This post comes from an article on the Mother Jones  blog by Inae Oh.

It's a reflection of what is fundamentally wrong in America.  Less than 160,000 families have more money than the other 316 million of us combined.    Stunning, shameful, incredibly corrosive to our economy and our democracy:.. those are some words I would choose to describe this circumstance.

Economics is pretty simple at its most basic.  Markets are a place where sellers come to deal with people who have the need to buy at least the necessities among all those things for sale. But, when the vast majority of people are no longer able to participate in that marketplace, because they have almost nothing to exchange for even basic needs like  food, shelter, and healthcare; when that happens,  the entire idea of a marketplace is undermined.    Sad to say, that is exactly what is wrong with America's today.  In effect, our economy is trapped in a malaise caused a tiny fraction of us owning all the wealth. 

All of the political power in America has fallen into the hands of big bankers, bloated corporations, and the super-rich.  Until that changes,  nine out of ten of us will continue to get the very short end of the stick.
_________________

From Inae Oh's Mother Jones blog piece...

While a complex web of factors have contributed to the rise in income inequality in America, a new research paper says most of the blame can be largely placed in the immense growth experienced by the top tenth of the richest 1 percent of Americans in recent years. From the report:

The rise of wealth inequality is almost entirely due to the rise of the top 0.1% wealth share, from 7% in 1979 to 22% in 2012, a level almost as high as in 1929. The bottom 90% wealth share first increased up to the mid-1980s and then steadily declined. The increase in wealth concentration is due to the surge of top incomes combined with an increase in saving rate inequality.

So, who are the 0.1 percent among us? According to Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the paper's researchers, the elite group is a small one, roughly composed of 160,000 families with assets exceeding $20 million, but their grip on America's wealth distribution is about to surpass the bottom 90 percent for the first time in more than half a century.  Today's 0.1 percent also tend to be younger than the top incomers of the 1960's, despite the fact the country as a whole has been living longer—proving once again, that there has truly never been a more opportune time to be rich in America:

This Changes Everything

About two weeks ago, best-selling author, Naomi Klein's new book, This Change Everything was released by Simon and Schuster.  It debuted at #5 on the New York Times Bestseller List.

I've been a fan of Naomi Klein for a long time. I read her first book, No Logo, when it came out about 20 years ago.  Then, her book The Shock Doctrine was released in 2007.  In a nutshell, it focused on the predatory, morally bankrupt nature of neoconservative economics; the brand of capitalism that's dominated since the days of Ronald Reagan.   I wrote a review of that book about two years ago. The link is http://ecstatictruthpdx.blogspot.com/2012/04/shock-doctrine.html  

I just finished reading This Changes Everything.  In it, Naomi Klein makes a powerful case that we are at the end of our rope with climate change.  If we continue, business as usual, running our world on oil, coal, and natural gas, the catastrophic consequences will be unprecedented in all of human history.

Klein shows that big coal and oil and the banks that underwrite them are the most lucrative businesses in all of history. Moreover, the billions in profits these corporate giants generate have allowed them to control the media  and manipulate our political system to get the tax and regulatory policy they want, no matter the consequences.

The primary cause of air pollution is the burning of fossil fuels    That pollution has caused a warming of the Earth's atmosphere that is already driving profound changes to our environment, including the melting of Earth's icecaps and glaciers, rising sea levels, and a large increase in highly destructive weather extremes.  In order to achieve anything close to a soft landing for humanity, scientists say that atmospheric temperature rise must be limited to two degrees Celsius. To do that,  we need to limit the additional carbon air pollution to 500 gigatons.  The problem is, as Klein points out,  fossil energy producers claim to have nearly 3,000 gigatons of  carbon in found, yet to be extracted, reserves of coal, oil, and gas.  That amounts to trillions of dollars in potential profits to energy companies that are only interested in generating income for their stakeholders. As Klein puts it, "...they're determined to burn five times more fossil fuel than the planet's atmosphere can begin to absorb.'

Here's another very unsettling nugget from Klein..."In 2013, in the United States alone, the oil and gas industry spent just under $400,000 a day lobbying Congress and government officials."

So, it's clear, big fossil energy is not about to back down and forgo trillions in profit. It's also clear, if they are allowed to have their way and burn all the dirty energy they claim to have, waiting and ready to dig up, the consequences for life on Earth will be disastrous to the extreme.

As Klein points out, we have the technologies to end our dependence on fossil forms of energy and revitalize human society with a transition to a whole range of proven, clean energy technologies. To some extent,  it's already happening.  

Wall Street and the big energy players are not about to let their largess of carbon to become stranded assets. They are using their money and influence to aggressively resist any threat to their political dominance and their obscene profits.

Blunting the power of corporations requires a fundamental change to our economic system, and to do that we must first remake our political system to remove the undue money and influence.  That's a tall order.  Klein believes only an unprecedented grassroots effort can prevail.  She presents ample evidence that just such an effort is possible, though the window for massive action is closing.

Naomi Klein's worldview is entirely compatible with my own. I think she is one of the most important voices for reason and positive change in public life.

I bought This Changes Everything at Powell's Bookstore in Beaverton the day after it was released. I then learned that on Wednesday, October 1st,  Naomi Klein was scheduled to appear at that same bookstore.   Of course, I was determined to get my copies of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine signed.  Then, I had an inspiration and what happened subsequently was much more than just getting the author's autograph.  Stayed tuned, for my follow-up blog entry on Naomi Klein and This Changes Everything.

Oh, and for the record, This Changes Everything gets my highest recommendation. 

The Shock Doctrine

In 2007, Canadian social activist, Naomi Klein published a very important book titled, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In a nutshell, Klein writes about the destructive brand of predatory capitalism that has taken over the United States, and has been exported to many other countries around the world.  Klein brilliantly sites example after example of this kind of greedy exploitation disgused thinly as capitalism.

A particularly vile bit of shock doctrine is now at work in the state of Michigan, where a republican controlled government has put a law in place that allows the governor to displace the properly elected government of a local community with an appointed overseer, who has free reign to do pretty much whatever he wants. This happened in the city of Benton Harbor, where the elected mayor and city council were thrown out by the governor's non-elected henchman.  The city of Benton Harbor had one very valuable asset; a public park set on the shore of Lake Michigan.  Shortly after the governor's man took over, he sold that priceless parkland to a developer, who is turning it into a gated golf comunity for rich folks.

Here is a link to a story on the plight of Benton Harbor

http://michiganmessenger.com/48333/benton-harbor-takeover-sparks-furious-reaction


The Benton Harbor story is not in Naomi Klein's book, but it is certainly an egregious example of what she does write about.  The Shock Doctrine is the dynamic behind the unprecidented divide between the 99ers and the 1% that has gained control of public policy in  America. The Shock Doctrine is a wake-up call for all of us, who want to live in a country that puts the welfare of its people ahead of narrow self-interest.

Here is a link to a short video made by Naomi Klein that presents the shock doctrine concept.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSF0e6oO_tw

Naomi Klein is one of the world's most important voices. Here is a link to her webpage...

http://www.naomiklein.org/main