This image was reposted on Facebook by activist Judy Rebick. It reminds us that language may have changed since the middle ages, but human conditions have not.
Economic inequality can fuel political extremism and it undermines the well-being of a society as a whole. Vertically integrated corporations controlled by the super-rich acquire smaller companies to reduce competition within the market. Economic power in the hands of a few leads to higher prices, reduced choices and further concentration of wealth.
According to Oxfam International, the richest 1 percent have amassed $42 trillion in new wealth over the past decade, nearly 34 times more than the entire bottom 50 percent of the world’s population. Oxfam has calculated that for every $1 raised in tax in G20 countries, less than 8 cents comes from taxes on wealth.
This international NGO was formed in 1995 to fight poverty and injustice. It says a tax of up to 5 percent on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.
Unsurprisingly, billionaire-linked think tanks and right wing political parties strenuously oppose wealth taxes. Economist Paul Krugman noted that huge disparities in income and wealth translate into comparable disparities in political influence. This ensures wealth taxes will not be implemented,
I can only wonder what the world will be like in 25 years as current trends continue.
The differences between the wealthiest people and the rest will grow larger. Poverty will increase. Unrest will result. Oppressed citizens will seek a solution.
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Categories: Inequality
in-sights.ca 
What I don’t hear is anyone in the political class elucidating a sense of the disproportionate imbalance in the distribution of wealth, and neither is there much that would indicate that there is a serious link being established between the wealth and the information infrastructure that feeds us all, as well as the direct effect that wealth has in getting people elected, both through campaign contributions and lobbying.
It has been very instructive to see the efforts of the Nouveau Front Populaire in France who managed to win the largest number of seats in the National Assembly, but were not asked to form government by the president who had dissolved the previous parliament, supposedly to bar the door to the extreme right. He now serves at the pleasure of the same people he talked about keeping out. Meanwhile, the NFP has done what it can to modify a disastrous austerity budget brought on by mismanagement and fiscal presents to the wealthiest people and corporations, said efforts being thwarted by the current “presidential” government with the full connivance of the Extreme Right Rassemblement National.
The NFP must work hard to keep its coalition in order, but in the meanwhile they articulate a vigorous vision for progressive redrawing of government policy and economic initiatives aimed at rebalancing the social contract and funding the ecological transition that is essential for human survival.
The link here has a ton of good stuff in it and will be useless to anyone whose French is not pretty polished, but I will say that Manuel Bompard, in his segment, elucidates the reason poor folk turn to rightist populists, including some trenchant insight into Harris’ loss in the recent US election: no party is championing a break from the ravages of our current economic and social processes.
NFP, and the core La France Insoumise group are clear on who needs to benefit and how they intend to get there. There is no party in either the US or Canada willing to take that plunge.
Bompard also notes that those interested in making constructive change must be working toward the next election and each election thereafter, working without cease, just as the parties of greed are already engaged. Link: https://www.youtube.com/live/zLjDrZwCoDE?si=2aQ80QzAB6m9TFF_
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The public, particularly in the USA, have been hooked lied and sinkered into believing in trickle down economics.
The longer we accept this , the longer reality will be restored.
I say this as Canada is ‘destined’ to elect a PM, of no previous distinction or achievement to the status of Emperor who will , without doubt, inflict Canadians with the whims of Steven Harper , the PM we resolutely rejected!!
Where the USA goes; Canada meekly follows albeit a year or so later.
Di you reject Canadian content ???
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Definitely don’t reject Canadian content, and, in fact. was quite pleased to hear what Sonya Furstenau had to say over the course of the recent BC election, but could we agree that she is a rare voice in taking a position contrary to the complacency and duplicity of the other parties?
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