Covert writes: "Last year was a good one for everyone's income. But it was a much better year for the richest of the rich. According to a new analysis by economist Emmanuel Saez, Americans in the bottom 99 percent of the country's income distribution saw their take home pay rise 3.9 percent in 2015 over 2014's levels, adjusted for inflation, the best increase they've seen in 17 years. But the top 1 percent of the country far outpaced them: the wealthy's income grew by 7.7 percent last year, reaching a new high."
Businessmen on Wall Street. (photo: AP)
Income Inequality Is at the Highest Level in American History
02 July 16
ast year was a good one for everyone�s income. But it was a much better year for the richest of the rich.
According to a new analysis by economist Emmanuel Saez, Americans in the bottom 99 percent of the country�s income distribution saw their take home pay rise 3.9 percent in 2015 over 2014�s levels, adjusted for inflation, the best increase they�ve seen in 17 years. But the top 1 percent of the country far outpaced them: the wealthy�s income grew by 7.7 percent last year, reaching a new high.
While the past two years have been good for the majority of Americans� income growth, they still haven�t fully recovered from the recession. For the bottom 99 percent, incomes fell 11.6 percent during the height of the recession from 2007 to 2009. Afterward, they grew just 7.6 percent between 2009 and 2015 � not enough to make up for the downturn. Incomes for the 99 percent have only recovered about 60 percent of what they lost.
But the rich are doing great. The incomes of the 1 percent grew 37 percent between 2009 and 2015. They captured more than half of all the income growth in the country over that period, leaving just 48 percent to spread out among the bottom 99 percent of families.
The top 10 percent of American earners took home more than half of all income last year, the highest share ever except for 2012.
And in fact, income inequality is now at the highest level the country has ever recorded in its entire history. While most data only goes back to the turn of the 20th century, economists Peter Lindert and Jeffrey WIlliamson used tax records, directories, and historical accounts to go back even further. They found that in the country�s earliest post-colonial history, inequality was quite low and much lower than countries across the Atlantic.
As the country�s economy rapidly expanded in the 1800s, inequality rose alongside it. Even so, at the heights of that era�s inequality, it never reached the levels we see today.
�We went from one of the most egalitarian places in the world to one of the least,� Williamson told the Washington Post. �What happened?�
Many factors have contributed to growing income inequality, but a lot of them have to do with taxes. Since the late 1990s, income inequality has been driven by the rich getting more and more of their money from returns on investments, something the less well off are less likely to benefit from, and that money is taxed at a lower rate. Overall, taxes and public programs are doing much less than they used to to mitigate the growth of income inequality as taxes have been lowered on the rich while lawmakers have withered the social safety net.
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So tell your Representative and friends and everybody you know to vote for people who are with us to avoid GMOs
But how many are dependent on corporate sponsorship, so they don't want to be labeled "anti-corporate"?
Capitalism corrupts; global capitalism corrupts absolutely.
Currently USDA organics are not allowed to BE GMO. So for them to serve only organic food is either a head fake or some kind if weird PR.
As to Starbucks.
A Latte GMOs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-couzens/a-latte-gmos_b_6119032.html
Posted: 11/07/2014
Apart from the article above, my SO got a Starbucks latte at Safeway around 2 years ago and instead of milk or cream they put some kind of plastic substitute in it that made him sick. Starbucks has become the "McDonalds" of coffee. We stopped going there as their stuff is crap.
Good, he is a real progressive but has not fallen into the trap of leftwing antisemitism. Our priority is domestic issues and the environment. Another country's internal affairs is none of our bizniz!
Thanks to Neil for standing up against Starbucks, Monsanto & GMOs. Your song will make a difference & provide a vibration around which people will gather to create alternatives. The movement must go much deeper, questioning every food & beverage which we eat. Coffee is tarnished with huge oil-based transportation. We must change our eating from the lower monocrop plants to a diversity of tree / Polyculture Orchard deeply rooted, deeply photosynthesizi ng foods such as nuts, sustainably harvested barks, tree-saps, bush-foods, greens & fruits, which are packed with minerals, vitamins, proteins, enzymes & other nutrients. 'Indigenous' (Latin 'self-generatin g') Polyculture Orchards photosynthesize between 92 -98% of solar energy, roots descend tens of metres into the substrate pumping water, mining minerals, developing nutrient colonies. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/design/1-indigenous-welcome-orchard-food-production-efficiencies
I will grant conditionally that transgenic food could in principle, under the control of a benign hand, save some people from starvation. In reality there are certainly ways to achieve that goal that are more effective and efficient in almost all cases.
And in reality, Monsanto is anything but a benign hand, and may actually reduce the food supply wherever it operates by putting productive farmers out of business not through market efficiency but through bogus lawsuits under corrupt judges, based on the contamination of neighboring fields by its patented genes.
Unfortunately, it appears that a good many "scientists" believe falsely that the absence of definitive evidence of their toxicity in the ordinary sense is evidence that they are not toxic, period. "Evidently" they are well schooled in the techniques of science but not so much or the process or its principles, foremost among which is skepticism. I have a feeling that our "schools" teach too much of the "gee-whiz" applications, and the money they bring, and not enough of the process of science and the principles on which it is based (aka, "the history and philosophy of science).
Otherwise I think you are quite correct, and I am quite certain that Monsanto is evil.
If you want to discuss rgbh milk, which could also be considered a GMO if you think about the artificially altered hormone, that is carcinogenic as has been shown in more than one study, but is mind-bogglingly required to be labeled as no different from non-rgbh milk.
IOW, it is important to correctly address the problem as the Pesticide. For example, Roundup is statistically linked to chronic kidney disease in Sugar Workers in central and South America. Also, with the growing practice of spraying Roundup on wheat just before harvest, there appears to be a correlating rise in celiac disease (gluten intolerance).
Now, if one specifically addresses Bt-corn, that could be a GMO food that is harmful and is thought to cause leaky-gut syndrome.
Here on Kauai, the "Blues" (pro-GMO) usually deflect criticism by pointing to the studies that show GMO food is safe (there is no doubt that there are a LOT of these studies) and completely ignoring the pesticide problem.
I do highly recommend the community gardens movement. There seems to me to be a good chance that many of us are going to have to get a lot closer to our food supplies in the not too distant future anyway, like maybe the next decade or so, in order to avoid becoming "collateral damage" in the food wars.
I recently read that not only are GMO crops heavily sprayed, but non-organic wheat is as well, as part of the "preparation" of the plants for harvest. I am guessing this may be behind the current explosion of demand for gluten-free products -- people are suddenly very sensitive to wheat, but maybe nothing to do with wheat itself, and maybe everything to do with Roundup all in the wheat supply.
But groups like Kauai Rising and Babes Against Biotech are still fighting back.
Also, the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action. Members of HAPA attended the Syngenta Shareholders meeting in Switzerland to ask them to pull back on the pesticides poisoning Hawaii.
http://www.hawaiiallianceforprogressiveaction.org
The Blue/Red divide is huge! At least once a week there is a story or op-ed or letter to the editor either pro or anti-GMO.
http://thegardenisland.com
You might consider sending a note to the Kauai Visitors Bureau:
http://www.gohawaii.com/en/kauai/#/kauai/landing
Or calling members of the Hawaiian Legislature.
The anti-GMO movement is also strong in Oregon, but I think tourist dollars in Hawaii can push the anti-pesticide message much further much faster.