Have We Hit Peak Inequality?

When should we be alarmed about so much wealth in so few hands?

The Great Recession and its anemic recovery only deepened the economic inequality that’s drawn so much attention in its wake. Nearly all wealth and income gains since then have flowed to the top one-tenth of America’s richest 1 percent.

The very wealthiest 400 Americans command dizzying fortunes. Their combined net worth, as catalogued in the 2015 Forbes 400 list, is $2.34 trillion. You can’t make this list unless you’re worth a cool $1.7 billion.

These 400 rich people — including Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, and heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune — have roughly as much wealth as the bottom 60 percent of the population, or over 190 million people added together, according to a new report I co-authored.

That equals the wealth of the nation’s entire African-American population, plus a third of the Latino population combined.

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A Circuit of Lies and “False Media”: Crimes against Humanity Go Unreported, The West Continues to Perpetrate Genocide in Iraq

Just the word “Junkanoo” has a fun sound to it, and it is every bit as much fun as it sounds. It is an extravagant street parade filled with elaborately themed colorful costumes, music and dance that takes place in The Bahamas on Boxing Day (December 26) and New Year’s Day. The liveliest and largest of the sensational Bahamas Junkanoo party celebrations is in Nassau, but you can also experience the intoxicating carnival atmosphere on Grand Bahama Island, Eleuthera/Harbour Island, Bimini, The Exumas and The Abacos.

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The US and China Are Playing with Matches

Russia and US warplanes are flying way too close to one another over Syria and may soon, in Iraq. Drones are all over the place. An accident is inevitable. Civilian airliners are increasingly at risk over the Mideast. US ground troops may enter Syria. This week the missile destroyer, USS Lassen, openly challenged the maritime exclusion zone drawn by China around its latest militarized atoll, Subi reef, in the South China Sea – a sort of poor man’s aircraft carrier that hugely annoys Washington and its Asian allies.

China is building other man-made islands by dredging submerged atolls. Japan and China are at dagger’s drawn over the disputed Senkaku (Daiyou in Chinese) Islands. The Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan all have overlapping claims in the region. China rejects all other nation’s claims.

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Worse Than We Thought:

"Worse than anything we could've imagined."
"An act of climate denial."
"Giveaway to big agribusiness."
"A death warrant for the open Internet."
"Worst nightmare."
"A disaster."
As expert analysis of the long-shrouded, newly publicized TransPacific Partnership (TPP) final text continued to roll out on Thursday, consensus formed around one fundamental assessment of the 12-nation pact: It's worse than we thought.

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Debt Serfdom in America: Spiralling Household Debts, Mortgages, Credit Cards, Student Loans

As of October 2015, American consumers owe $8.17 trillion in mortgages, $900 billion in credit cards, and $1.19 trillion in student loans. Home mortgages, credit cards, and student loans occupy the most of the consumer credit market.

The consumer credit market is the dream paradise of money merchants, known as moneylenders. Just as pharma companies sell drugs to make money by way of profit, money merchants sell money to make money by way of interest. Note again, money merchants sell money to make money. They sell money to millions of American consumers needing to buy houses, cars, or home appliances. They sell money to millions of American students becoming physicians, lawyers, managers, as well as to college students. Big operators set up banks, brokerage houses, and credit unions. Small operators run payday loans and pawnshops. The rich and the wretched, the lord and the tenant, teachers and students, men and women, all this and all that, except the privileged few, are obligated, in one form or the other, to money merchants.

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